It was decidedly not a pleasant walk. Frau Schultz took up the parable of the narrow-minded Englishman, and expounded it through the _bise_. Felicia longed for home. To try to turn the conversation into a calmer channel, she took advantage of a lull, and inquired after Frau Schultz's daughter. The ingenious device succeeded.
Lottchen's early history lasted until they reached their own street. Felicia did not know whether to hate Lottchen for being such a paragon, or to pity her for being so parented. At last she made a rash remark.
“I don't think you gave Frâulein Schultz much chance of doing anything wrong.”
“I was her mother,” replied Frau Schultz with dignity, “and in Germany young girls obey their mothers and respect the mothers of other young girls. If I had spoken to a German girl as I did to you this morning, she would have been grateful.”
“I am very sorry, Frau Schultz, but I don't like to hear my friends spoken ill of.”
“I wanted to save you from those friends. I say again, Mrs. Stapleton is not the person I should let my innocent daughter associate with.”
Felicia fired up. They were within a few yards of the entrance to the pension. “You know nothing whatever against Mrs. Stapleton. I think it very unkind of you.”
Frau Schultz looked at her and broke into derisive laughter. It jarred through the girl as if she had trodden upon an electric eel. She left Frau Schultz at the foot of the staircase, and ran up by herself, tingling with anger and disgust.
Six months ago she would scarcely have divined Frau Schultz's insinuations. Now she did. Her mental range had widened considerably since she had lived in the pension. A less refined nature might have been to some extent coarsened by the experience, but her knowledge only brought her keener repugnance. She was no longer puzzled or frightened, but disgusted--sometimes revolted. It seemed as if she could never get free from the taint. Even Katherine, whose society, since they had grown more intimate, she had sought more and more, and to whom she had gone for comfort and pure breath, when the air had been close with lax talk or unsavoury recrimination--even Katherine was now declared by this vulgar, domineering woman to be infected by what, in the girl's eyes, was the same leprosy. She did not believe it. In other matters Felicia had seen Frau Schultz convicted as a liar. But the imputation seemed like a foul hand laid upon their friendship.