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at all, not at all;" and he wrapped his greatcoat over his knees.
    Then the Four Serious Songs rang shallow in Margaret’s ears. Brahms, for all his grumbling and grizzling, had never guessed what it felt like to be suspected of stealing an umbrella. For this fool of a young man thought that she and Helen and Tibby had been playing the confidence trick on him, and that if he gave his address they would break into his rooms some midnight or other and steal his walking–stick too. Most ladies would have laughed, but Margaret really minded, for it gave her a glimpse into squalor. To trust people is a luxury in which only the wealthy can indulge; the poor cannot afford it. As soon as Brahms had grunted himself out, she gave him her card and said, "That is where we live; if you preferred, you could call for the umbrella after the concert, but I didn’t like to trouble you when it has all been our fault."
    His face brightened a little when he saw that Wickham Place was W. It was sad to see him corroded with suspicion, and yet not daring to be impolite, in case these well–dressed people were honest after all. She took it as a good sign that he said to her, "It’s a fine programme this afternoon, is it not?" for this was the remark with which he had originally opened, before the umbrella intervened.
    "The Beethoven’s fine," said Margaret, who was not a female of the encouraging type. "I don’t like the Brahms, though, nor the Mendelssohn that came first and ugh! I don’t like this Elgar that’s coming."
    "What, what?" called Herr Liesecke, overhearing. "The 'Pomp and Circumstance' will not be fine?"
    "Oh, Margaret, you tiresome girl!" cried her aunt.
    "Here have I been persuading Herr Liesecke to stop for 'Pomp and Circumstance,' and you are undoing all my work. I am so anxious for him to hear what WE are doing in music. Oh,—you musn’t run down our English composers, Margaret."
    "For my part, I have heard the composition at Stettin," said Fraulein Mosebach, "on two occasions. It is dramatic, a little."
    "Frieda, you despise English music. You know you do. And English art. And English literature, except Shakespeare, and he’s a German. Very well, Frieda, you may go."
    The lovers laughed and glanced at each other. Moved by a common impulse, they rose to their feet and fled from "Pomp and Circumstance."
    "We have this call to pay in Finsbury Circus, it is true," said Herr Liesecke, as he edged past her and reached the gangway just as the music started.
    "Margaret—" loudly whispered by Aunt Juley.
    "Margaret, Margaret! Fraulein Mosebach has left her beautiful little bag behind her on the seat."
    Sure enough, there was Frieda’s reticule, containing her address book, her pocket dictionary, her map of London, and her money.
    "Oh, what a bother—what a family we are! Fr—frieda!"
    "Hush!" said all those who thought the music fine.
    "But it’s the number they want in Finsbury Circus."
    "Might I—couldn’t I—" said the suspicious young man, and got very red.
    "Oh, I would be so grateful."
    He took the bag—money clinking inside it—and slipped up the gangway with it. He was just in time to catch them at the swing–door, and he received a pretty smile from the German girl and a fine bow from her cavalier. He returned to his seat upsides with the world. The trust that they had reposed in him was trivial, but he felt that it cancelled his mistrust for them, and that probably he would not be "had" over his umbrella. This young man had been "had" in the past badly, perhaps overwhelmingly—and now most of his energies went in defending himself against the unknown. But this afternoon—perhaps on account of music—he perceived that one must slack off occasionally or what is the good of being alive? Wickham Place, W., though a risk, was as safe as most things, and he would risk it.
    So when the concert was over and Margaret said, "We live quite near; I am going there now. Could you walk round with me, and we’ll find