"Who is that old lady?" he inquired, looking up at me. "Any relation of yours?"
"So! And you mean to let her prevent you from following the career you have a talent for?"
"If I do not do as she wishes, I shall have no chance of following any career at all," said I. "And, besides, how does any one know that I have a talent--for--for--what you say?"
"I know it; that is why I said it. I wish I could persuade that old lady to my way of thinking!" he added. "I wish you were out of her hands and in mine. _Na!_ we shall see!"
It was not a very long "trial" that he gave me; we soon rose from the piano.
"To-morrow at eleven I come to give you a lesson," said he. "I am going to talk to Miss Hallam now. You please not come. I wish to see her alone; and I can manage her better by myself, _nicht wahr_!"
"You must have a piano, too," he added; "and we must have the room to ourselves. I allow no third person to be present in my private lessons, but go on the principle of Paul Heyse's hero, Edwin, either in open lecture, or _unter vier Augen_."
With that he held the door open for me, and as I turned into my room, shook hands with me in a friendly manner, bidding me expect him on the morrow.
Certainly, I decided, Herr von Francius was quite unlike any one I had ever seen before; and how awfully cool he was and self-possessed. I liked him well, though.
The next morning Herr von Francius gave me my first lesson, and after that I had one from him nearly every day. As teacher and as acquaintance he was, as it were, two different men. As teacher he was strict, severe, gave much blame and little praise; but when he did once praise me, I remember, I carried the remembrance of it with me for days as a ray of sunshine. He seemed never surprised to find how much work had been prepared for him, although he would express displeasure sometimes at its quality. He was a teacher whom it was impossible not to respect, whom one obeyed by instinct. As man, as acquaintance, I knew little of him, though I heard much--idle tales, which it would be as idle to repeat. They chiefly related to his domineering disposition and determination to go his own way and disregard that of others. In this fashion my life became busy enough.