CHAPTER XIII
The next morning, on waking, new troubles faced her. Nobody could be so blind as not to detect, sooner or later, what a rotten existence hers was; least of all he whose refinement, at every spiritual contact, awoke in her an anxious echo. Even if she could keep from him every contamination of the world she lived in, and create in it an isolated platform on which to associate with him alone, would not her appearance at last betray her? All those nights of wild dissipation surely must have left some traces behind. It was two years ago that Dr. Salmoni had spoken of the "cold contempt" in her eyes.
She jumped out of bed and ran to the looking-glass to subject every feature to a suspicious scrutiny. Her eyes had a tired look, it was not to be denied; but there was no contempt in their expression. He had called them "Mary eyes," not Madonna eyes. Was there a difference, she wondered? There were a few faint lines on her forehead, but these she could almost rub out with her finger. A little massaging was all that was necessary. Worse were the lines on either side of her mouth, giving to her face a blasé, rather haughty look.
"The paths that devouring passion long has trod," she quoted from "Tannhäuser in Rom," which she knew almost by heart.
Yet, had she not preserved all that was best and deepest in her nature, as if she must guard it, for one who was to come into her life? And now that he had come, the one, it might perhaps be too late.
The day passed in fretting and worrying, and when Richard appeared at tea-time he found her with red eyes. She learnt this afternoon what a treasure she possessed in Richard. He asked her so few questions, was so full of tactful solicitude, that for a few moments at least she felt comforted and sheltered. She was almost tempted to confide in him what she had gone through the last day or two. Was he not her kindest friend? Fortunately, however, she refrained. She would rather, on the whole, tell Adele, who on several occasions had let fall the encouraging remark that her mistress might place absolute confidence in her, as she knew life too well not to take the lady's part.
Lilly, feeling that she could not endure any of "the crew" this evening, pleaded headache, and Richard did not grumble. But when night drew near she remembered that she had told Dr. Rennschmidt that she was going out, and in order not to be caught in a falsehood she hurriedly extinguished the light and sat brooding in the dark till bedtime.
In the morning the first post brought her a letter addressed in an unknown hand. She broke the seal. Oh, God! What was this? Could these lines apply to her, to Lilly Czepanek, who was eating her heart out in morbid self-humiliation?
If anyone on the face of the earth could think of her like this, especially he, the grandest and best of all--for these verses were his, without any manner of doubt, though there was no signature--then, after all, things were not going so badly with her. The life she led had not as yet entirely mastered her; the innermost core of her being remained unaffected; there must still be latent good in her, which if used might be a blessing to herself and to others.
After she had learnt the verses by heart, she went on reading them over and over again, as she could not tear her eyes away from the beloved handwriting.
Then she tried to set them to music. She opened the piano and improvised, and, as on the previous evening, her playing came back to her. Soon she could play once more all the things she had known years ago and long since forgotten. She just struck the notes and everything came back. But her fingers were stiff, and her wrists and the muscles of her forearm soon ached. She must exercise them and get them supple again. Then when he came to see her she would be able to play him something classical. This hope still further increased her new-born self-esteem, and she began to count the hours till evening.
When Richard came in the afternoon he found her at the piano practising diligently.
"What's come over you?" he asked. "I had no idea you could play so well."
"Nor I," she replied, laughing.
"You must show what you can do when we're out this evening."
"This evening?" she exclaimed, horrified. "I thought that I was free this evening."
"Free! I don't know what you mean by 'free,'" he answered irritably. "You talk as if our going out together were a sort of martyrdom. You get off whenever you can trump up an excuse. Only yesterday Karla was saying no one knew what you did with yourself when you were alone."
"I should have thought that applied much more to Karla than to me," she replied. "No one even knows her real name."
"That's nothing to do with it. She is not the only person who has remarked how reserved you are. I have been advised by a man to look after you a little more, and not let you go your own way so much. To shut them up I promised to bring you this evening instead of yesterday; and I must keep my word."
Lilly quickly reflected that opposition to his wishes would not help her, and only give him further cause for suspicion, so she bravely choked back her tears and disappointment. But when he was gone she suffered all the more acutely, and her grief and despair knew no bounds.
What would her new friend think of her if he came at the appointed time and found her not at home? She could not send a note to put him off, for he had not given her his address, and he would have twenty-four hours in which to think the worst of her.
As a last resource she confided in Adele. Her dry, sour face brightened perceptibly, for deception of any kind was meat and drink to her. She proposed that the gracious mistress should say that she had been summoned to a friend's sick-bed. Such sad occurrences, she knew by experience, always appealed to gentlemen; and Lilly agreed to act on her advice.
The round-table derived little amusement from her society that evening. She ignored the men and was rude to the ladies. Frau Jula, the only person she wanted to see, was absent, as she had been often of late. They soon left her to her own devices, and the worthy Richard, who had imagined he was going to show her music off, gnawed the ends of his moustache in helpless vexation.
The next morning she again suffered torments. She had roused up Adele in the middle of the night, and learned that he had been and had gone away again, greatly perturbed.
Another day passed in nervous counting of the hours. She stood before the glass and arrayed herself for him despondently. She would have liked to throw herself at his feet, but in spite of this she resolved to adopt a certain melancholy quiet dignity in her manner towards him, which would nip suspicion in the bud and make him feel that she tallied with the ideal depicted in his verses. Had he not in them termed her flighty, flirtatious head a "head divine"? The mere thought made her feel holy.
At half-past seven the bell rang. She received him with a conventional "How do you do?" and smile; and the quiet melancholy hauteur, which she assumed, became her remarkably well, and effectually concealed her chagrin and anxiety.
His manner, too, was not so composed and frank as usual. At a single glance she perceived it. His eyes wandered beyond her with a curiously vacant expression.
"He guesses everything," a voice cried within her.
But she knew how to control her feelings. "I must apologise," she said, "that I was unable to keep my appointment with you yesterday."
"Is your friend better?" he inquired; and a smile of scornful incredulity played about his lips.
She now said anything that came into her head, and although she did not look at him, she knew that he did not believe a syllable.
"I also must apologise," he said, with the same covert scorn in smile and voice.
"Why, Dr. Rennschmidt?"
"I took the liberty of sending you a few verses, which I hope you accepted in the spirit in which they were written--merely as an exercise in style, without any special application or significance."
"He is cooling already," her consciousness of guilt told her. And so all the colder and more unconcerned was her answer.
"Your pretty lines did rather surprise me at first, as I couldn't conceive why they should be addressed to me, but afterwards it occurred to me that it might be what you have just said it was, and I did not mind. If you don't object, I would rather not talk about it any more."
He gazed at her with eyes dilated from amazement, and she was glad that she had driven her thrust home with such bitterness.
Next she asked him if he would have supper with her, as she wished to do the right thing, though nothing had been prepared for a guest.
"I thought that I had been given permission to call for you and take you out," he said in a cold, disillusioned tone.
She smiled graciously. "If you wish, I shall be happy to come," she said.
In silence they descended the staircase, in silence they walked along the bank of the canal the same path that they had taken, in such rapturous proximity to each other, three evenings ago. They had been silent then, but what a different silence it had been from this.
"What have you been doing the last few days?" she asked, for the sake of saying something.
"Nothing special," he replied. He had been trying to write an article for a Munich art paper, to which he was a contributor, on the subject of the Siennese School outside Sienna. But he hadn't succeeded. His editor wouldn't be satisfied with his stuff.
She read in his words a reproach to herself. Obviously he wished to imply that her entrance into his life was to blame. And when he asked to which restaurant she would like to go, she was so hurt that she begged to be excused.
"I am neither hungry nor thirsty," she said, "and lights and people would jar on me."
"If you would rather avoid people, we might perhaps turn into the Tiergarten?"
She acquiesced; and if he had proposed plunging with him into the canal she would have consented even more readily.
Before them stretched the roads of the park like long galleries with garish walls of electric light, between which one was obliged to run the gauntlet. The pedestrians who came towards them stared at this tall pair, as they passed, with cold impertinent curiosity.
"This is worse than the crowded streets," she said. Her sore heart fluttered dully with excitement.
He indicated a side path that was dark, and without speaking a word they dived into the benighted solitude. Above the dense canopy of branches the sky showed through rents in the clouds like tarnished metal, reflecting the city's glare. The glimmer of lamps from the great main avenues twinkled through the lattice-work of bare shrubs, and the bells of the electric tramways, shooting hither and thither at a short distance, sounded like repeated fire-alarms. Yet, here in the thickets of the park, stillness and darkness reigned. You felt as if you were being swallowed up by a sea of black oblivion. Every moment the silence grew more oppressive. Then, all at once, he hurried a step in front of her to bar her progress.
"What is the matter?" she asked, frightened.
"I am going to say something to you now," he began, "something which will either bring us together again, or estrange us more than ever--in fact, end everything.... I was too great a coward just now, and tried to prevaricate. When I said I did not mean my verses seriously I was not speaking the truth. I felt all that I wrote, only I felt it a thousand times more strongly. But I should have refrained from expressing my feelings.... I know now that it must have alarmed you. It has caused you to change your opinion of me. You may be thinking that I am a mere seeker of love adventures, who has tried to make capital out of your trust and confidence. I promise you, dear gracious one, never to annoy you by revealing my feelings again. But don't withdraw your friendship, I earnestly entreat you.... Please do not.... Think what will become of me if I lose you now!"
Ah! so this was it! This! It was this deviation from an excess of reticence which had divided and stood between them. Oh, would to God there had been nothing else! She could not help herself; she just leaned against a tree and burst out crying. Her tears came with such force that her veil was soon drenched through and through. She had to throw it back and press her hands against her eyelids.
"For God's sake, what is it?" she heard him ask in a voice quite husky from anxiety. "Have I wounded you so deeply? Is what I have said so bad? I will retract everything; only forgive me--you must forgive me!"
When he thus asked her forgiveness for all the infinite joy he had given her, her passion leapt up and set her on fire. The pose of haughty dignity--aye, and her shame too--she cast to the winds; and with a groan of abandonment she flung her arms round his neck, pressed herself against him, and clung to his mouth with her lips and teeth.
Under the onslaught of this wild and impure embrace he recoiled, and in thrusting her from him he dug his fingers deeply into the upper part of her arm. How it hurt, but how she liked it!
"At last! at last!" her soul cried. Now he knew who and what she was, and how much she had to give him.
When she gained command of herself again, she saw him leaning against the same tree from which she had sought support a moment before. His hat had fallen off, his eyes were closed. He was as pale and inanimate as death.
For a moment all was still save for the clanging bells of the electric trams from the near distance.
"Dearest, beloved," she whispered, stooping and leaning against his knees. "Wake up, darling; wake up and come."
He opened his eyes and stared at her as if his wits were wandering.
"Come, come!" she cried joyously. "Come away from here. Come home. I don't want to wander about any more here in the dark among the trees, or in the restaurants and streets. I want to go home. With you, with you!"
He did not answer. He seemed quite distracted. A dull sense of guilt awoke in her, to be quickly drowned in exultation.
"Come, come to me!"
With both hands she drew him from the spot that had become the cradle of her happiness--and of his too. His happiness stunned him and robbed him of his senses; was there anything very extraordinary in that? When Lilly Czepanek, whom hundreds of men had wanted in vain, gave herself voluntarily it was enough to turn any man's brain. And as they made their way through avenues and streets she poured out her pent-up soul to him in an avalanche of chatter.
Didn't he realise what unheard-of folly it was for him to cherish any doubts? From the very first moment she had been his. A miracle had been worked for both of them. Never had she known what love really was till the day when she had whistled to the squirrels skirmishing above their heads.... Life had been nothing to her since then.... There was nothing in the world that mattered except him--him and his eyes, his mouth, his great purpose, his splendid wonderful work, for which she was ready to work like a galley slave, and which she would enrich with her love; for in his researches amongst ancient pictures and books he could gather nothing but the grey ashes of love. She could teach him--she, Lilly Czepanek--what true fresh young love meant; she who had been waiting for him ever since she could remember. Had she not belonged to him before the world began? God had meant them for each other. Nothing could be clearer than that, because they had both felt that they had met each other before. And so they had, in some dream-life. Yes, they had met in their dreams, for she had dreamed of him always--always. It was all just like what one read of in fairy-tales.
"Perhaps it is a fairy-tale! You--you whose Christian name I don't even know yet--but what does that matter? Say, say it is not a fairy-tale."
But he said nothing. He walked on like a man walking in his sleep. He followed her mechanically up her staircase, and stood stiffly under the chandelier in the middle of the corner drawing-room, into which she had led him, gazing round him in shy uncertainty, as if he had never been in the room, and was puzzled to know how he had got there.
She clasped him to her playfully, saying he should rest and close his eyes. Then she helped him off with his overcoat, forced him into an arm-chair, and kissed his eyes till his lids drooped and he lay there as if really asleep.
"Rest there, beloved, till I come back," she said.
And away she ran, bursting with joyous excitement, to the kitchen to tell Adele to get supper as soon as possible. Next, she hurried into her room and changed the rustling silk she was wearing for a pale-blue tea-gown with turquoise embroideries, in which Richard used gallantly to declare she looked like Venus herself. She loosened her hair to make it look more curly, and took off all her rings. A single plain gold bracelet was her only ornament.
The sulky Adele, who had transformed the table like magic into a flower-garden, was actually beaming, for at last it seemed as if a little human comedy was to come off in this dully respectable, disorderly household. The plate gleamed on the clean damask cloth, and golden-yellow bananas and pears sent forth a fragrance from the dessert-dishes.
He ought to be as satisfied as she was. Her heart beat normally now; she had lost all fear. She would have felt like a conquering heroine if she had not been so humble in her joy. One thing she could be proud of, and that was, she had so much, so very much to give him.
When she went into the drawing-room again, she found him no longer resting in the arm-chair. He was standing at the writing-table, absorbed in contemplating Richard's photograph, to her great discomposure. If only she had thought of slipping it into a drawer; but now it was too late. He let his eyes glide over her Venus draperies in perplexity; then he caught hold of both her hands.
"Why have you made yourself so beautiful for me?" he asked.
"I wanted you to feel just a little bit at home here," she said, letting her eyes fall. "Nothing more. Now come to supper. You know we've had nothing to eat this evening."
"Eat and drink now ... But I will sit with you at the table, if you like, while you eat."
"Then I won't have anything, either," she said, putting her arm round his neck and drawing him so closely to her that the pressure almost took her breath away.
Peterle, the small monkey, who had been asleep in his corner, now woke, and made a little jealous whimper as he stretched his grey hands through the bars as if to plead his right to be a third in the compact.
The strange sound made the guest start.
Lilly smilingly reassured him. "After supper I must introduce you to my little people. My friends must be your friends, you know."
He drew himself up. "How can you? What would you introduce me as?" he asked.
"Oh no!" Lilly protested; "I did not mean anything of that kind. I only meant ..." She couldn't say what.
Then she felt her arm clasped in his trembling fingers. His eyes burned into hers.
"Who are you?" he asked.
She felt a little giddy. "Who am I? ... I am a woman who loves you as you have never been loved by anyone."
He passed his hands over her shoulders in a grateful caress. "I must make you understand me clearly," he said. "I don't want to force your confidence. But when two beings have stood as near to each other as we have during the last hour, they naturally want to know everything there is to know. I have never met a woman in the least like you before. I am quite ignorant, for the one or two little experiences I have had count as nothing. In Rome a baker's daughter was in love with me, but she ran away with a marquis. In my student days I had a few other affairs of the kind. That is all. I have been in society very little. And now, all at once, here I am with you in my arms--you, the most glorious and perfect thing I have ever seen in my life! A woman who hardly seems to belong to this world at all.... I cannot take my eyes off you in your blue peplus.... You stand there the image of an antique statue, a masterpiece of Lysippus or Praxiteles come to life. And I am to call that mine? Why, the mere thought is sheer tragedy. We are both making for a precipice without an attempt to save ourselves."
"Why should we?" she cried, throwing back her head in ecstasy, as if she were tossing back a bacchante's wild locks. "We love each other, and nothing else matters."
He sank into the chair next her, and with dry tearless sobs buried his face in his two hands. She knelt down in front of him, and bending forward planted little fugitive kisses on his clenched hands.
"No!" he cried, springing up again, "this must not be. I must not let myself be driven into a false position. You may think as you do, and be willing to sacrifice all that you have and are--very well. But I, who am to accept such infinite goodness--I must speak out, so that you will be quite clear for whom you are doing it. I must not leave open a shadow of a possibility of your being misled. I am a poor young chap living on his uncle's bounty. I have no prospects, for my great work is still in embryo, and the articles I write are nothing to speak of. I have still to win by unremitting toil a pied-à-terre in life. It may take me ten years.... I could never submit to being supported by you. You must think what you will of me, but I say now, once for all, that a marriage between us is out of the question."
At first she could hardly believe her ears. Here was someone so-unworldly, so naïve and ingenuous, as actually to mention marriage seriously in Lilly Czepanek's corner drawing-room! Then she laughed shrilly, in scorn of her shameless life.
"Do you take me for an adventuress who inveigles men into her net?" she cried, jumping to her feet. "Do you take me for a harpy?"--Frau Jula's expression came back to her--"a harpy who tries to catch every person she chances to meet? Am I such a miserable wretch?"
He stared at her face with an astonished, uncomprehending glance.
"The woman who loves a man and desires to give him his crowning happiness is not a 'miserable wretch,'" he said.
Ah, then he really meant it!
She thought of the days when she had still been innocent enough to wish she was Richard's wife. How long ago was that? She must have sunk low indeed for this most natural relationship between man and woman to appear so strange to her!
She shuddered and felt she was turning pale. What if he had noticed? She could bear anything but that. Shrinking from his searching eyes, she replied timidly:
"I only wanted you to understand that you are free, and can always be free. You can go when you like, at any time, and have nothing to fear."
"And you?" he asked.
"What about me?"
"In what position should I leave you if I went?"
"Oh, that would be my lookout," she exclaimed, laughing.
That was such a remote contingency, why should they worry about it to-day? But he was not satisfied.
"There is something inscrutable about you. A touch of mystery.... How shall I put it? Some wrong seems to cast a shadow upon you.... You say that you go into society a great deal, yet I cannot get over the feeling that you are lonely and perhaps unprotected. When I try to penetrate farther into your soul, I feel that in some way or other you have been harshly dealt with.... From now onwards I shall stand by you as protector and adviser, but I am handicapped in being so ignorant of the world and its ways. It might happen that with every good intention I should only increase the mischief.... And I don't want to do that, because to me you are hallowed. So I beg of you now to tell me as much as you feel you can and may, of all that you have lived through and suffered. Will you?"
She felt now that evasion was no longer possible. The hour of which she had been in dread and had tried to postpone indefinitely had sounded. Again a phrase of Frau Jula's came into her mind: "The way back to the community of all the virtues is only made by lying."
With lying she had begun, with lying she must continue. For a moment the wish rose in her heart to tell him the whole truth, but that would be insane folly, absolutely suicidal. After all, it was not necessary to lie. She had only to put a different complexion on her life's story, to tell it as if it had been what to-day she would like it to appear.
"I'll turn down the lights," she said, and extinguished the crystal-white flames of the chandelier, leaving only the rose-shaded standard lamp to cast a subdued glow on their corner.
His hands in hers, leaning her head against his shoulder, she began her whispered and halting confession.
She told him of her sheltered, merry childhood, free from care and full of music, which played the part of both fairy and demon in her youth; of her father's flight and the beginning of poverty and desperate struggles. So far she had withheld nothing, perverted nothing. Even the colonel was not altered, except that from habit she now and again promoted him to the rank of general. Only, when Walter von Prell came into the picture for the second time, it seemed inevitable that fresh colours should be mixed on the palette; for she would, without doubt, descend rapidly in her friend's esteem if she owned that she had abandoned herself body and soul in light-hearted frivolity to a little ne'er-do-well. So she made of that incorrigible rascal an ill-fated laughing young hero, who had only been vanquished because all the powers were ranged against him.
Once started, the rest was smooth sailing. She invented a touching farewell scene, taking place amidst a thousand vows of faithfulness, floods of tears, and promised bridal prospects. The horrors of the duel, of which she had never taken the trouble to find out the particulars, were exaggerated to such a degree that her lover emerged from it an incurable cripple. He had set steam for America, firmly resolved not to turn up again in the old country till he was in a position to expiate his misdeed by marrying her; and he had in the meantime confided her as a sacred trust to his friend, a worthy, excellent young man, whose character was made up of nobility and unselfishness. It was the latter who, out of regard for the unhappy banished lover, had four years ago taken her fate into his keeping, kept watch over her, and introduced her into society. He had also, with rare tact and unselfishness, managed for her the little fortune saved from her days of affluence, and given her the support of his valuable advice and assistance in all questions concerning her everyday practical life. He came every day at tea-time to inquire courteously after her health, and he sometimes escorted her home from a theatre or social gathering, and had a cigarette afterwards. His circle of friends had become hers, and everyone they knew honoured and respected their relationship, as it was based on high-souled loyalty to his friend abroad.
Thus Lilly Czepanek related her story with so much conviction that she almost began to believe it herself. And was it not a fair enough account of her life, as Richard had represented it before her descent to the depths on the night of the Kellermann carnival?
She did not mention either Kellermann or Dr. Salmoni, or make any reference to "the crew," which was natural enough; but she spoke of her ill-fated art with tears and regret, and said it should be for the last time. She wished never to allude to it again.
When she had finished speaking and looked up at him with a feeling of relief, expecting to receive his absolution, she was startled at the change in his face. He had turned a deathly hue, his feverish eyes were cast up to the ceiling, and there were deep lines of pain in his cheeks.
"Doesn't he believe me?" flashed through her brain.
He sprang up, seized Richard's photograph, which stood on the escritoire in a frame, and brought it close to the light of the shaded lamp.
She knew that he was thinking of Walter, and said, "That is not his photograph."
"Who is it, then?"
"His friend ... the manufacturer."
Disappointed, he threw the frame on one side. "Have you no picture of him?"
Yes ... she had, but where was it? The big pastel portrait was in the attic; the smaller photograph she must have crammed away in some drawer.
"I put it away," she said apologetically; "I could not bear seeing it before me every day."
The reason was not very clear. He could, if he liked, interpret it as her growing love for him. Yet, how pitiable and ludicrous it all was! She would rather have thrown herself at his feet, and cried, "Forgive ... forgive. Take me as I am; don't cast me off!" Instead, she was obliged to go on lying, disgracefully, desperately, like a common adventuress on the verge of being found out.
"Will you mind very much if I ask you to look for the photograph?"
"Oh, my beloved! Why do you torment yourself?"
"Please look for it," he said.
Further resistance was not to be thought of. She fetched the key of the escritoire, unlocked and opened the drawers at random, and searched wildly, hardly seeing what she was doing, among the papers. Ah, here it was! She hadn't looked at it for years. Imperiously and vindictively the light-lashed eyes glanced at her as much as to say: "Cheat, lie, and swindle. I have done it too."
"This is it," she said.
He took it to the light, stared long and earnestly at the features. His lips twitched, and he jerked the photograph nervously as he held it in his hand.
"Just as I once stood before the photograph of the young orphaned heiress," she thought; but that was long ago.
Then she heard his voice asking hoarsely, "Will you answer a single question, which is of vital importance to me?"
"Ask anything you like, dearest."
"Are you still building on the return of this young man?"
Where did the question lead? She felt she only had to say "No" to break down all obstacles. But if she did, the tale she had been telling her friend about Walter would be utterly without sense or meaning, and who could tell then if his suspicions would not at last be aroused?
So she steered a middle course, and said, "Often I am inclined to doubt"--she hesitated over her words. "You see, I am waiting for two ... There's my father, who seems to have vanished for ever.... I never hear from him either."
"And you feel yourself bound to him still?"
She felt the noose tightening about her neck.
"Answer me."
There was something in his tone that abolished every loophole of escape. She felt that it was a matter of life and death. She held up her arms as if taking a solemn oath.
"Since I have known you, I don't care one way or the other. If you wish me to be faithful to him, then I will wait for him ... till the crack of doom; if you would rather I threw him over, I will do that too."
He laid his head back and closed his eyes. He stood now exactly as he had done in the dark bit of the park. And she felt the same anxiety on his behalf. "Why will he torture himself so?" she thought. And it occurred to her for the first time that he was taking her and everything she said in earnest; that he, to whom loyalty was a law, expected loyalty from her in the natural course of things. Ah, how little he knew!
She was so deeply ashamed of herself that she dared not question or come near him.
He drew himself up with a powerful effort, and she saw the cloud of wrath on his brow that had awed her the first day of their acquaintance.
"Listen," he said. "After what you have been telling me, I see that I was on a wrong tack. You are not lonely and forsaken, the world has not sinned against you. On the contrary, you are protected and cared for, and have a future, however uncertain, to look forward to. You would lose all this through me. His friend would not, of course, continue his support if he heard anything about me. And it would be the same with the others, who at present constitute your world."
She wanted to shriek with laughter, to whistle her contempt of all that had made up her life hitherto, but the sound was stifled in her throat. She recollected in time that to snap her fingers at her past might precipitate a catastrophe, which would expose the misery of her position. To him she might only belong in dark, secret hours.
"And what have I to offer you in compensation?" he continued. "Nothing. My work is still in the clouds. I am not even sure of myself. And when I think of this last hour----" He broke off and turned his eyes away.
"Then you don't love me?" she said in a depressed tone.
He flung himself on her chair, so that kneeling on the cushions he could encircle her waist with his hands.
"My God! be merciful! You see what I am enduring; don't make it harder. I should always be repeating to myself, every day and every hour, 'Over in America there's a fellow working himself to death for her.... He doesn't write because he is ashamed to confess how his maimed body is standing in his way and bringing all his enterprises to naught' ... at least, I can think of no other reason for his silence--for no man could forget a woman like you. Meanwhile, I have stolen you from him, and sit here with you in my arms.... I don't know ... the idea of a man leading a profligate life does not shock me ... but to rob a poor hard-working cripple of his all ... I think the meanest scoundrel in creation would draw the line at that.... I know I shall never get over it, but"--he collapsed, hitting his head against the arm of the chair, and sobbed--"better to part now, at once, on the spot, than wait till it is too late for both of us."
The blow had fallen. Cleverly as she thought she had garbled her story, she was caught in her own net.
"You mean that you will--oh God!" she cried.
He got up. "Good-bye," he said, "good-bye, and thank you. Do not think too harshly of me."
"If I tell him the truth now, it'll only make him go all the faster," she thought, looking round her helplessly.
His hands were held out waiting for hers; his eyes drank her in, as if by so doing he could imprint her image on his heart for ever.
"I will put myself in front of the door," she thought. "I will throw myself on him and suffocate him with kisses."
But the desire not to sink in his estimation made her timid and faint-hearted.
"Don't go yet," she besought him, clinging to his hands. "Stay one more hour, just one--a farewell hour."
He disengaged himself gently, and turned to the door.
She stood in the middle of the room, drawn up to her full height, the wide sleeves of her blue Venus drapery fell back from her arms, displaying their matured beauty, as she held them out to him beseechingly.
"If he sees me like this," she thought, "he will yet be mine."
But he did not look back. He staggered, and knocked his forehead against the panel of the door as he opened it; and then all at once it seemed as if he were wiped off the face of the earth, and with him light and everything.... A swarm of bees rose buzzing into the air, and in the darkness that suddenly surrounded her the floor sank deeper and always deeper towards the canal waters ... a hatchet struck her on the head and then all was over.
At first it sounded like a twittering of birds, then like the murmur of an enormous crowd in a wide sunny square, and then there were only two voices left: a man's voice and a woman's whispering eagerly together--the old cook, Grete, and the manservant with the impudent twinkle in his eye. Yes, of course, it was they. The colonel would come in immediately and ask her to be his wife. At the same instant she felt something cool, damp, and soothing on her aching head. Just as she had felt that night.... "Am I to live through it all again?" she thought, startled, and she began to cry, and entreat, "Oh, please, Herr Colonel, let me go. I am far too bad a girl for you. Oh, dear Herr Colonel!"
"Good God! she is delirious," said the masculine voice, which was certainly not that of the impudent manservant.
Ah! how comforting it was to lie under the magic of this voice, in which a note of homeliness quivered.
"So he hasn't gone, after all," she thought, and leaned back contentedly on her cushion, which had been placed on the carpet as a support for her neck. If she had known his Christian name, she would have called him by it now. But she was still ignorant of it, even after all that had passed between them. What a shame it was! She could only put out her arms a little towards him in silence. He was already kneeling beside her, stroking her hands.
She must keep quiet, absolutely quiet.
"Will everything be all right now?" she asked, smiling up at him in bliss.
Yes, yes; everything. Ways and means must be found of seeing each other often as friends, as brother and sister. No; there should be no parting, no separation. No one was bound to inflict such hideous torture on himself as that.
She thought with a shudder of the moment when darkness had gathered in around her, and she had sunk into the mire. So would her life always have been without him. But now, as brother and sister, they were free to greet in light-hearted joyousness a new dawn.
Such happiness was almost inconceivable.
She groped for his arm, and pillowed her cheek in the palm of his hand with a deep-drawn happy sigh. But Adele, who had all this time been discreetly looking out of the window, now interposed with the suggestion that a fresh compress was needed, as the wound in her mistress's forehead was still bleeding. And so it was adjusted.