“Soldatin, eh?” mused Von Gerhard. “Our little soldier. She is well named. And her battles she fights alone. But quite alone.” His eyes, as they looked down on me from his great height had that in them which sent the blood rushing and tingling to my finger-tips. I brought my hand to my head in stiff military salute.
“Inspection satisfactory, sir?”
He laughed a rueful little laugh. “Eminently. Aber ganz befriedigend.”
He was very tall, and straight and good to look at as he stood there in the hall with the light from the newel-post illuminating his features and emphasizing his blondness. Frau Nirlanger’s face wore a drawn little look of pain as she gazed at him, and from him to the figure of her husband who had just emerged from the dining room, and was making unsteady progress toward us. Herr Nirlanger’s face was flushed and his damp, dark hair was awry so that one lock straggled limply down over his forehead. As he approached he surveyed us with a surly frown that changed slowly into a leering grin. He lurched over and placed a hand familiarly on my shoulder.
“We mus’ part,” he announced, dramatically. “O, weh! The bes’ of frien’s m’z part. Well, g’by, li’l interfering Teufel. F’give you, though, b’cause you’re such a pretty li’l Teufel.” He raised one hand as though to pat my check and because of the horror which I saw on the face of the woman beside me I tried to smile, and did not shrink from him. But with a quick movement Von Gerhard clutched the swaying figure and turned it so that it faced the stairs.
“Come Nirlanger! Time for hard-working men like you and me to be in bed. Mrs. Orme must not nod over her desk to-morrow, either. So good-night. Schlafen Sie wohl.”
Konrad Nirlanger turned a scowling face over his shoulder. Then he forgot what he was scowling for, and smiled a leering smile.
“Pretty good frien’s, you an’ the li’l Teufel, yes? Guess we’ll have to watch you, huh, Anna? We’ll watch ’em, won’t we?”
He began to climb the stairs laboriously, with Frau Nirlanger’s light figure flitting just ahead of him. At the bend in the stairway she turned and looked down on us a moment, her eyes very bright and big. She pressed her fingers to her lips and wafted a little kiss toward us with a gesture indescribably graceful and pathetic. She viewed her husband’s laborious progress, not daring to offer help. Then the turn in the stair hid her from sight.
In the dim quiet of the little hallway Von Gerhard held out his hands—those deft, manual hands—those steady, sure, surgeonly hands—hands to cling to, to steady oneself by, and because I needed them most just then, and because I longed with my whole soul to place both my weary hands in those strong capable ones and to bring those dear, cool, sane fingers up to my burning cheeks, I put one foot on the first stair and held out two chilly fingertips. “Good-night, Herr Doktor,” I said, “and thank you, not only for myself, but for her. I have felt what she feels to-night. It is not a pleasant thing to be ashamed of one’s husband.”