Brand was writing in his study upstairs when the new maid showed me in. Or, rather, he was leaning over a writing-block, with his elbows dug into the table, and his face in his hands, while an unlighted pipe—his old trench pipe—lay across the inkpot.
"Thinking out a new plot, old man?" I asked cheerily.
"It doesn't come," he said. "My own plot cuts across my line of thought."
"How's Elsa?"
He pointed with the stem of his pipe to the door leading from his room.
"Sleeping, I hope. . . . Sit down, and let's have a yarn."
We talked about things in general for a time. They were not very cheerful, anyhow. Brand and I were both gloomy souls just then, and knew each other too well to camouflage our views about the state of Europe and the "unrest" (as it was called) in England.
Then he told me about Elsa, and it was a tragic tale. From the very first his people had treated her with a studied unkindness which had broken her nerve and spirit. She had come to England with a joyous hope of finding happiness and friendship with her husband's family, and glad to escape from the sadness of Germany and the solemn disapproval of her own people, apart from Franz, who was devoted to her.
Her first dismay came when she kissed the hand of her mother-in-law, who drew it away as though she had been stung by a wasp, and when her movement to kiss her husband's sister Ethel was repulsed by a girl who drew back icily and said, "How do you do?"
Even then she comforted herself a little with the thought that this coldness was due to English reserve, and that in a little while English kindness would be revealed. But the days passed with only unkindness.
