XII
Judith took Letitia with her to Homburg, and they visited the fashionable shops. The rich girl bought whatever stirred her fancy, and from time to time she turned to her friend and said: “Would you like that? Do try it on! It suits you charmingly.” Suddenly Letitia saw herself overwhelmed with presents; and if she made even a gesture of hesitation, Judith was hurt.
They crossed the market-place. Letitia loved cherries. But when they came to the booth of the huckstress, Judith pushed forward and began to chaffer with the woman because she thought the cherries too dear. The woman insisted on her price, and Judith drew Letitia commandingly away.
She asked her: “What do you think of my brother Christian? Is he very nice to you?” She encouraged Letitia, who was frank, gave her advice and told her stories of the adventures that Christian had had with women. His friends had often entertained her with these romances.
But when Letitia, rocked into security by such sincere sympathy, blushed, and first in silence and with lowered eyes, later in sweet, low words, confessed something of her feeling for Christian, Judith’s mouth showed an edge of scorn; she threw back her head and showed the arrogance of a family that deemed itself a race of kings.
Letitia felt that she had permitted herself to slip into a net. She guarded herself more closely, and Crammon’s warnings would have been needed no longer.
He offered her many. He sought to inspire in her a wholesome fear of the bravery of youth, to attune her mood to the older vintages among men who alone could offer a woman protection and reliance. He was neither so clever nor so subtle as he thought.
With all his jesuitical cultivation, in the end he felt that something about this girl knocked at his heart. No posing to himself helped. His thought spun an annoying web. Was he to prove the truth of the foolish old legend concerning the voice of the blood? Then he must escape from this haunted place!
Letitia laughed at him. She said: “I’m only laughing because I feel that way, Crammon, and because the sky to-day is so blue. Do you understand?”
“O nymph,” sighed Crammon. “I am a poor sinner.” And he slunk away.