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buggy.
    When we got in, she leaned back against the worn leather seat and sighed before she gave the driver her address. The motor spluttered and the rickety cab moved away.
    “We Germans are a poor people,” she said as if in apology.
    “There are things more important than automobiles, Fräulein Esch, and you Germans have many of them.” My words sounded wooden in my ears.
    “Please don’t call me Fräulein. I hate that word. Will you call me Ruth?”
    “I’d like to. If I may see you again.”
    “I want to see you again. There are so few people I can talk to any more.”
    “You haven’t talked much to me.”
    “I will,” she said. “I’m fearfully—loquacious. Giddy and loquacious.”
    “To-morrow for lunch?”
    “If you wish.”
    “Thank you.”
    “Thank you. I’m afraid I’ve spoilt your evening, and now you’re inviting me to spoil your luncheon.”
    “That’s the first giddy thing you’ve said. You’ve lit up my evening like a Christmas tree. Is there something the matter, Ruth?”
    “No, I’m just tired.”
    “Who were the SS boys that passed our table? You looked as if you didn’t like them.”
    “Did I? I must cultivate a dead—is it dead face?”
    “Dead pan,” I said. “Poker face. Your man Hitler has one most of the time.”
    “He’s not my man Hitler,” she said sharply. The driver cocked an ear. She changed her tone: “He’s not my man. Der Führer belongs to all of us.”
    The driver stopped the cab and smiled at us benignantly as we got out. “Heil Hitler,” he said.
    “Heil Hitler,” Ruth replied.
    She turned and gave me her hand, which was slim and cold.
    “Heil Ruth,” I said under my breath. “When and where to-morrow?”
    “Well, I’ll be working here in the morning—”
    “May I call for you here? At twelve, say?”
    “That would be very nice,” she said. She looked so soft and sweet in the lamplight I thought of kissing her, but she turned and ran up the steps with a wave of her hand and the massive paneled door closed behind her.
    Before taking the cab back to my pension, I got out my new map of Munich and marked the location of her apartment in two colors, with the street and number in large block capitals.
    Next morning after breakfast, I set out for the Englischer Garten to kill two birds with one stone. I was supposed to be studying English romantic influence on the Continental garden, and it happened that Ruth’s apartment house overlooked the Englischer Garten. I walked around the great park all morning and thought more about Ruth than I did about English romanticism.
    At five minutes to twelve I was in her street scanning a tall row of blank-eyed stone houses with faintly Asiatic tilted eaves. Her number signaled in brass from above an arched doorway, and I knocked on the locked door. It opened immediately.
    “Mr. Branch! I’m so very glad you’ve come.” She looked glad. “Kommen sie nur’rein.”
    She motioned me in and I passed her in the doorway. Her morning freshness made me think of lilies of the valley.
    “Lilies without, roses within,” I said to myself.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “I was just quoting a little verse. It comes over me all of a sudden and I have to quote verse. You’re looking very well.”
    “So are you,” she said as she led me down the hall.
    “I feel well, I’ve been walking in the Englischer Garten all morning.”
    “Have you? Did you see the water-birds—the water-fowl?”
    “Yep. And the pagoda, and the Greek shrine on a hill. Is it by any chance a shrine of Venus?”
    “What a funny question. Why do you ask?” She opened a door and stood aside to let me enter.
    “Because I said a brief prayer to Venus there, invoking her aid.”
    Her eyes passed over me like a cool wave as I entered the room. “That’s rather a compliment, I suppose. A very courtly one. I didn’t know Americans—”
    “Were capable of courtliness? You should see me with the powdered wig and ruffles that I wear around