CHAPTER III
Was it the path of fate that she pursued?
The street looked the same as usual. Vans rumbled along, housewives crowded in front of the butchers' doing their marketing, young men hurried by with rolls of music and books under their arms, but were not in too great a hurry to turn round and look after her, causing her, as of old, mingled feelings of satisfaction and annoyance.
The path of fate? Yes, said the throbbing of her heart. She felt almost as if she were on her way to exhibit herself for sale. Herself? How much was there of her left, of her little stock of pride, of her faith in herself as one of the elect, her belief in the great miracle that was to happen to her? How much?
Her walk took over an hour. She lost her way and was put right by policemen. She stopped to look at her reflection in the shop-windows, for she was afraid of not pleasing. But every time she saw the soft curves of her slight tall figure, with its nonchalant dignity of carriage, she breathed a sigh of relief.
At last, when she read the name of the street in which he lived, she started. She had hoped in secret that she would not be able to find it after all, and have to go home. There was nothing remarkable about his house. It was a grey four-storied building, with a wide unadorned entrance, across which a board was erected.
Liebert and Dehnicke,
Bronze Founders and Manufacturers of Metal Wares
was inscribed in gold letters on a massive wrought-iron plate, which extended half the width of the house.
From the opposite side of the street she took in every detail, still asking herself whether she should not turn round and go home. The windows on the first floor were closely hung with delicate primrose-coloured curtains embroidered with gold thread in a broken conventional pattern. Out of snow-white china flower-pots nodded geraniums and pinks, and on the whole everything here looked better kept and more prosperous than its surroundings.
"He lives on that floor, I expect," she thought, feeling slightly awed at the chaste severity of the exterior decorations.
Then she took heart, crossed the street, and made straight for the door of latticed ironwork, which was close to the carriage entrance, and probably led up to that impressive first floor. But this door was fast locked, and before ringing she glanced through the lattice and beheld a stately garden stairway flanked by cypresses and laurels ascending to a landing where a stained-glass window cast ruby and sapphire rays on a fair white statue. It was the bust of Clytie, which she had always admired in the art shops because of its gentle melancholy.
Her heart sank again at all this splendour. She seemed unworthy of breaking in on such decorous calm, so she sprang down the steps again and preferred to enter by the general entrance, where some workmen were busy facing the bare bricks with ornamental stucco. In the yard men were at work, too. The cobble-stones, with which it had evidently been hitherto covered, were piled in clumsy heaps, and mosaic tiles with white circles on a grey ground, such as one sees in churches, were being laid. At the back of the yard rose the red bald brick walls of the factory itself. But this too appeared to be included in the universal beautifying scheme, and was undergoing alterations. As far as the second story the walls were being inlaid with a dado of yellow and blue, which looked very gay. In fact, the old dingy aspect of the yard was being gradually converted into the elegance of a room.
"They are doing things artistically here," Lilly thought, and felt still more nervous.
On her left she saw a corner building that so far had escaped a drop of renovating paint or varnish. In contrast to the rest, its bare plaster walls presented a dirty, chalky, and almost forlorn appearance. At the top of its plain iron steps was a brass tablet bearing the words "Office" on its face. Lilly ascended the steps and entered an ill-lighted dusty apartment divided into two parts by a wooden railing. In the farther division half a dozen young men sat at desks covered with shabby green baize. At her entrance they riveted their eyes on her in gaping astonishment, and it did not apparently occur to any of them to ask what she wanted. It was evident that such a dazzling apparition as herself had never been seen in the office within the memory of man. Not till she had taken a card from her brocaded wrist-bag and laid it silently on the table did the petrified company show signs of life. Then they all jumped up with one accord and scuffled for the card. It was almost a free fight.
A lank, pasty, overgrown youth, who seemed to have authority over the rest, finally sent the others back to their places, and bowing and scraping to Lilly, murmured that he would inform "the Chief" of her presence, and he disappeared with the card in his hand into a back room.
A few moments elapsed. Lilly heard through the half-open door a lowered voice say, "Czepanek? Don't know the name. Ask her what she wants. What's she like?"
The answer, which was inaudible, lasted several seconds and evidently was satisfactory, for the clerk came out, and without further inquiry let Lilly through, and ushered her into the private room at the back of the office.
Now she saw him in the flesh. He was a thick-set man, of middle height--shorter than she was--inclined to corpulency, with a round fresh-complexioned face, nice greyish-blue eyes, without any expression, a high forehead, and arched eyebrows. His hair was light brown, brushed smoothly back from his temples, and his moustache turned up abruptly at the ends to mark the Lieutenant. He had remarkably small ears and small hands. His whole person breathed scrupulous neatness and cleanliness, and, if anything, he was too well groomed.
He was clearly taken aback when he saw Lilly. His eyes widened with polite amazement.
Consciousness that she had made an impression gave her back her self-assurance and sang-froid. Not in vain had she gone through Fräulein von Schwertfeger's training.
"The introduction of a mutual friend, who has, I think, prepared you for my visit, brings me to you," she began, inwardly rejoiced to have a chance once more of playing the great lady.
In a mirror hanging opposite Lilly saw with satisfaction the reflection of her heliotrope toque, with its wreath of violets and swathing of tulle, her heliotrope tailor-made costume, with its correctly cut long coat, and felt as if she had stepped out of the picture of a society portrait-painter.
In silence he offered her a chair. The surprise that his manner had at first shown was succeeded by an air of distrustful perplexity. Apparently he was puzzled as to her social rank.
His head was inclined slightly to the left, as if it were stiff from a recent attack of rheumatism. This pose increased Lilly's suspicion that he did not altogether trust her.
She looked down at her brocaded wrist-bag and pretended to be suppressing a smile.
He grew more embarrassed. "May I ask," he stammered, "who the mutual friend ... er ... is? I don't seem to ... recollect."
He turned over the visiting-card, which his clerk had handed to him, in desperation.
She shrank from being forced into mentioning the name of her former lover, and so exposing her shame to this man who lived behind china flower-pots.
"Is it possible that you don't remember," she answered hesitatingly, "receiving a letter from a comrade in your regiment, asking you to interest yourself in a ... a lady----?"
He jumped to his feet and flushed to the roots of his hair. His pupils dilated so visibly between his wide-stretched lids that she thought his eyes were going to start out of his head.
"I beg your pardon," he stammered. "You refer to a letter which I had nearly a year and a half ago from Lieutenant von Prell?"
"Yes," Lilly said.
"But, gracious baroness," he exclaimed, completely losing his self-possession, "if I had suspected ... could have had the least idea that the gracious baroness ..." And his face depicted so much grovelling reverence that Lilly's feeling of innate aristocracy again came to the surface, but he had to be undeceived.
"I call myself Lilly Czepanek now," she murmured, congratulating herself on the happy phrase, "I call myself," which left it open for him to suppose that she had chosen voluntarily to resume her maiden name.
Alarm at the blunder he imaged himself to have committed was to be read on his features.
"I am sorry," he said; "I ought to have remembered that the gracious baroness must have gone through many trials." Then he blurted out: "Why didn't you come sooner? I waited, waited, and waited a month, six months.... Then I started searching for you, with no results; but I half thought of employing a detective, only I feared to transgress the bounds of delicacy ..."
Lilly nodded encouragingly. She appreciated his scruples.
"Unfortunately, it never struck me to search for you under another name.... So I had to abandon the hope of ever having the great pleasure ..."
Here, in the intensity of his emotions of delight, he would have grasped her hand, but he had the tact to resist the impulse when he saw that she did not respond.
Lilly was conscious of being mistress of the situation. She felt so saturated with the romance of martyrdom, so surrounded by the delicious incense of lofty aloofness, that it was as if she had stepped out of the pages of one of Frau Asmussen's novels into the light of day.
"I am grateful to you, Herr--Lieutenant." She could not bring the plebeian name of Dehnicke over her lips. "Now I fed that I have not knocked at your door in vain."
"I can assure you," he replied, cocking his head still more to the left as a sign of his good-will, "that I place myself entirely at your service, all I am and all I----" He was going to say "have," but as an astute man of business he hesitated to commit himself so lightly.
"Of course, I shall not impose on you too much," she replied airily, in order to damp his ardour a little. "I simply wish to be put in the way of earning my living, and to have someone who will advise me, and, as Herr von Prell"--now his name was spoken--"said that I might have absolute confidence in you----"
"Indeed, you may rely on me as on yourself," he could not forbear from assuring her.
"That would not mean much," she thought, but took care not to betray what passed through her mind by even a smile.
"Have you, by-the-by, heard anything from him lately?" he asked.
She blushed. To admit that she hadn't would expose his treatment of her. So, not to appear in the light of being neglected and cast off, she said:
"We promised each other at parting not to write. We thought it would be best in the struggle that lay before us not to be always looking out for letters, and expecting to hear from one another. But you probably have heard from him, have you not?"
He started and reflected a moment. "Yes ... that is to say ... not recently.... Some time back he wrote that he was getting on all right. He was starting a career. He made urgent inquiries after the gracious baroness's whereabouts, and I, of course, was not fortunate enough to be able to enlighten him."
This sounded scarcely likely. A moment before he had asked her for news of Walter, and now when she asked him what Walter's address was, he was compelled to confess that his letter had given no address.
It was plain that he had lied.
It may have been that he hoped to raise her opinion of him by representing himself to be still on terms of friendship with her lover, and, as she for a similar motive had not strictly adhered to the truth, she could not very well blame him.
She now went on to explain the purpose of her visit. She told him of her difficulties with the delicate art which she had taken up a few months ago, of her desire to improve and perfect herself. Would he be so kind as to put her on the right road by recommending some artist who would give her lessons? This was really the only reason why she had called on him.
He listened with close attention, as if he took a professional interest in her future. But behind his gravity there lay something that disquieted her. It was certainly not pity, rather was it a sort of restraint, a concealment of the fact that the more she revealed the helplessness of her position the more he felt he was gaining some advantage.
"A perfectly simple matter, gracious Frau," he replied, and his manner was more natural than heretofore. "I have several good painters among the artists who supply models for my business. One of them," he turned over the pages of an address-book, "Kellermann ... is the very man ... but of that we can talk later. What seems to me of the first importance in the art you have chosen are other things. So you will pardon my indiscretion, I hope, if I ask you a few questions?"
She nodded assent.
"What training have you had in Art?"
"That is just it," she replied, struggling with her embarrassment; "it is because I have had no training that I want to learn."
He did not move a muscle.
"What are your means of support?" he asked next.
She was silent. She began to feel as if she were being stripped of every rag she had on.
"You understand, of course," he added, "that I haven't the least intention of prying into your private affairs, but as you did me the honour of asking my advice ..."
"I have a few ornaments," she said, looking him straight in the eyes with proud defiance. "When they come to an end I shall have nothing."
He inclined his head as much as to say, "I thought so."
"And one more question: Where are you living at present?"
"I am living, as befits my means, up four flights of stairs with a poor woman who has taught me how to press flowers."
As she said this she caught sight, in the glass opposite, of the elegant woman of the world who had condescended to pay Herr Dehnicke, "comrade of the Reserves," a visit in his gloomy hole of an office.
He rose and paced up and down a few seconds between the writing-table and door. His clothes were so tight and new that he crackled and creaked at every movement. He looked as if he had just stepped out of a bandbox, he was so polished and rotund. He was a little bit bald too, already. His face remained very serious, almost careworn. It seemed as if her hard lot weighed him to the earth.
"My dear madam," he began, pausing in front of her, and his voice trembled a little, "what I am going to say to you is only prompted by the memory of the many years of sincere friendship that have existed between Herr von Prell and me ..."
The scornful, patronising way in which Walter had referred to him in his letter came back to Lilly.
"I have had so many happy, jolly hours in his society. I am indebted to him for so much kindness ..." He stopped. He could not, indebted as he was, name the kindness.... "All my life long I shall be grateful to him."
Lilly recalled Walter's words: "He feels himself particularly indebted to me because I borrowed money from him on more than one occasion."
It was really refreshing to meet with such touching loyalty.
"But what I am most grateful to him for is that he should place such confidence in me as to entrust his fiancée to my care."
"Fiancée!" Her ears had not deceived her; he had actually pronounced the word. She was startled, but did not contradict him. Until that moment it had never entered her head to consider that there was any binding tie between her and Walter--the poor little irresponsible fellow who could not be expected to look after himself, much less a wife and child. But in the eyes of this man of middle-class morals, and perhaps not only in his but in the eyes of the world, and in her own, the only excuse for her irregular, bungled existence lay in this contingency. If she centred all her hopes and wishes on the absent one whom she never imagined she would see again, she would have a new anchor to cling to. She might even justify herself before God and hope for absolution.
This all flashed through her mind while Herr Dehnicke continued to assure her of his friendship for Walter, and fasten on her round eyes of disinterested adoration.
"As his representative, and for his sake," he said, coming to the point, "I would urge you most seriously, dear madam, to quit surroundings that are not congenial to you, and find others more fitting to your former rank. It is absolutely necessary if you wish to put your plans into execution."
"What have my surroundings to do with my art?" she asked, shrugging her shoulders.
"Well, to begin with, you certainly must have a studio in which you can receive your customers, ... where you can show them who you are, and what you can do, and how far you are capable of carrying out your designs. This is the only method of ensuring those who give you orders treating you as a crafts-woman and not a mere ordinary work-woman."
"But they won't come to me to give their orders," she interposed.
"They should do so, undoubtedly," he exclaimed, working himself up into a decorous enthusiasm. "An artist who has any self-respect ought never to step outside his door to offer his wares to the public, and I advise you to act on this principle."
She mentally calculated the number of rings, pendants, and bracelets that she had left, and replied, smiling:
"It's more easily said than done."
He grew bold. "My old and intimate friendship with Walter"--he used his Christian name for the first time--"entitles me to the privilege of--how shall I put it?--making provision ..."
She foresaw what was coming and choked him off.
"I am quite content where I am," she declared. "And till I am able, out of my own resources, to provide myself with the surroundings you are kind enough to wish for me, I do not feel justified in making a change."
He bowed, his zeal perceptibly cooled. He asked her at least to leave her present address, so that he might send her the desired information.
Hesitating, she gave the number and name of the street where she lodged, and added the request that he would not think of calling on her.
He bowed again stiffly. His coolness increased and he became almost rigid.
She felt glad that she had understood so well how to keep him at a distance. No one could say she was a beggar after this.
She took leave graciously, for it was not her intention to snub him too mercilessly.
He was quick to take advantage of her warmer tone, and became ardent again.
"Was there anything else that he could do for her?... Did she feel lonely? Did she wish for society?"
She glanced at his right hand, on which there was no wedding-ring, and shook her head, smiling.
He had perfectly understood both glance and smile, and, struggling with a fresh attack of embarrassment, he cleared his throat and said:
"I live alone with my mother, but, unfortunately, I cannot ask you to come and see her, as she is in very poor health, and since my father's death sees nobody. But I might introduce you to a few people of irreproachable position, of course if you cared to know them."
"Thank you very much," Lilly replied patronisingly. "Naturally, I should take for granted that you would only introduce me to nice people. But, in spite of that, I think I would rather not. It will be best, at present, for me to do without society."
With this she made a regal inclination of her head, held out her hand, and departed.
He followed her deferentially to the door, and the six young gentlemen stood up with one accord in a row and bowed like their master.
She passed out through the unfinished alterations in the courtyard, with flushed cheeks. When she was out in the street her mood was one of mingled triumph and disappointment. "No, that was not my path of fate," she said to herself.
But she had unexpectedly acquired a fiancé, and that was something.