"Well, don't be long."

The old flute-player was turning towards the kitchen door, when a loud
rap upon the hall door halted him.

"I suppose the officer has grown tired of waiting," Mrs. Vanderlyn
explained.

"Come in," said Kreutzer, wonderingly. Few visitors had ever knocked
at his door since he had moved to that tenement.

To Mrs. Vanderlyn's amazement, and his own, the door, when it had
opened, revealed John Vanderlyn. He was very plainly worried. He did
not even stop for greetings, but said, immediately, to his mother:

"Well, mother, what are you doing here?"

Mrs. Vanderlyn was quite as much surprised, apparently, to see him
there, as he was to discover her in the old flute-player's rooms.

"My dear boy!" she cried. "How in the world did you learn that I had
come here? What do you want? Has something happened at the house?"

Her son advanced into the room with a low bow to his host. It was
quite plain that, for some reason, he wished to show Herr Kreutzer
every courtesy; it was plain that he had reason to suspect that,
possibly, his mother had not done so and that this fact worried him.

"The butler heard you give the order to the chauffeur to drive you to
Herr Kreutzer's home," he told his mother briefly. Then, turning to