not in the least embarrassed, but laughed out in the most natural manner,—so strange, so she said, did the possibility of being infatuated with such a man seem to her.
"'Can a decent woman have any other feeling for such a man than the pleasure derived by music? If you want me to, I am ready never to see him again. Not even on Sunday, even though guests have been invited. Write to him that I am not well, and all is ended. It is disgusting to think that anybody, but especially he, should imagine that he is a dangerous man. I am too proud to allow any one to think so.'
"She was not telling an untruth. She believed all she was saying she hoped with these words to elicit in herself contempt for him and in this way to defend herself against him, but she did not succeed. Everything was against her, more particularly that accursed music. So all was ended, and on Sunday the guests arrived and they again played together.
