_mufti_, to make her father drop his head, pull down his hat and
hurry on, almost as if in sudden panic, dragging her by a slender
wrist clasped in a hand which trembled; but he did do all these
things, while the queer gentleman with the upturned moustaches (Anna
had no notion who he was) stopped stonestill in his stroll and gazed
after them with puzzled eyes in which a semi-recognition and a very
lively curiosity seemed growing.

"Who is he, father?" Anna asked, in English, which the father much
preferred to German from her lips and which she spoke with carefully
exact construction, but with charming rolling of the r's and hissing
of the s's. Her accent was much more pronounced than his, due,
doubtless, to the fact that while he went daily to his little corner
of the English world to earn their living, her seclusion was complete.
She saw few English save M'riar and the landlady--whose accent never
tempted her to imitation. "He seemed to know you," she went on. "He
seemed to wish, almost, to speak with you, but seemed to feel not
positive that you _were_ you."

Kreutzer gave her a quick glance, then seemed to pull himself together
with an effort. He assumed a carefully surprised air. "Who is he? Who
is who, mine liebschen?"

"The gentleman from whom you ran away?"

"I run!" said Kreutzer, doubling his demeanor of astonishment as if in
total ignorance of what she meant. "I run! Why should I run, my Anna?
Why should I run from anybody?"

The daughter looked at him and sighed and then she looked at him and