'ICH WILL ALLES LERNEN--'" "ICH WILL ALLES LERNEN, WAS SIE MICH LEHREN:--there _now_, tell me what it means." "Not until you learn it; _encore une fois_." I said it after him again and again, but when I attempted it alone, I made invariably some error.
"Let me write it for you," he said, and pulling a book from his pocket, tore out a leaf and wrote the sentence on it.

"There--keep the paper and study it, and say it to me in the morning." I have the paper still; long years have passed: it is only a crumpled little yellow fragment; but the world would be poorer and emptier to me if it were destroyed.
I had quite mastered the sentence, saying it after him word for word, and held the slip of paper in my hand, when I heard steps in the hall.

I knew Richard's step very well, and gave a little start.

Mr.Langenau frowned, and his manner changed, as I half rose from my seat, and as quickly sank back in it again.
"Is it that you lack courage ?" he said, looking at me keenly.
"I don't know what I lack," I cried, bending down my head to hide my flushed face; "but I hate to be scolded and have scenes." "But who has a right to scold you and to make a scene ?" "Nobody: only everybody does it all the same." "Everybody, I suppose, means Mr.Richard Vandermarck, who is frowning at you this moment from the hall." "And it means you--who are frowning at me this moment from your seat." All this time Richard had been standing in the hall; but now he walked slowly away.

I felt sure he had given me up.