Page:Alice Lauder.pdf/192

THE professor spent some days very pleasantly at Green Street, in close companionship with his pupil, who seemed to thoroughly enjoy the long walks and talks and endless excursions into music which they took together—“strumming over his old compositions all day long,” as Clare put it, with all the jealousy of a mute inglorious amateur. Everything was fresh and delightful to him, and he enjoyed the new scenery, the new air, and the ever-youthful sunshine with all the enthusiasm of a boy on a holiday. But the claims of friendship called him away to the neighbouring capital, where a friend of his youth, Adolf Smalz by name, had established himself in a good mercantile position. Smalz was a man of the world, though he did kiss his friend on both cheeks when they met in full view of the railway station public, and he was a leading member of the leading club, of which, according to the hospitable colonial fashion, the professor was immediately made an