This elementary application of balm at once soothed Mrs. Harvey-Browne into a radiance of smiles perplexing in conjunction with her age and supposed superiority to vanities. Forgetful of her objections to German crowds and smoke she sat down in the chair vacated by Andrews, made the Professor sit down again in his, and plunged into an exuberant conversation, which began by an invitation so warm that it almost seemed on fire to visit herself and the bishop before the summer was over in the episcopal glories of Babbacombe. This much I heard as I slipped away into the peace of the front room. Brosy came after me. To him the picture of the Professor being wrapped about in Mrs. Harvey-Browne's amenities was manifestly displeasing.
The front room seemed very calm and spacious after what we had just been in. A few fishermen were drinking beer at the bar; in a corner sat Andrews and Gertrud, beginning a necessarily inarticulate acquaintance over the hold-alls; both window and door were open, and the rain came down straight and steady, filling the place with a soft murmuring and dampness. Across the clearness of my first decision that the Professor must be an absolutely delightful person to be always with, had crept a slight film of doubt. There were some things about him that might possibly, I began in a dim way to see, annoy a wife. He seemed to love Charlotte, and he had seemed to be very fond of me—anyhow, never before had I been so much patted in so short a space of time. Yet the moment he caught sight of the Alsatian bow he forgot my presence and existence, forgot the fluster he had been in to get on after his wife, and attached himself to it with a vehemence that no one could be expected to like. A shadowy conviction began to pervade my mind that the sooner I handed him over to Charlotte and drove on again alone the better. Surely Charlotte ought to go back to him and look after him; why should I be obliged to drive round Rügen first with one Nieberlein and then with the other?
'The ways of Fate are truly eccentric,' I remarked, half to myself, going to the door and gazing out into the wet.
'Because they have led you to Arkona on a rainy day?' asked Brosy.
'Because of that and because of heaps of other things,' I said; and sitting down at a table on which lay a bulky tome with much-thumbed covers, I began rather impatiently to turn over its pages.
But I had not yet reached the limits of what Fate can and will do to a harmless woman who only asks to be left unnoticed; for while Brosy and I were studying this book, which is an ancient visitor's book of 1843 kept by the landlord's father or grandfather, I forget which, and quite the best thing Arkona possesses, so that I advise the traveller, whose welfare I do my best at intervals to promote, not to leave Arkona without having seen it,—while, I say, we were studying this book, admiring many of its sketches, laughing over the inevitable ineptitudes that seem to drop with so surprising a facility from the pens of persons who inscribe their names, examining with awe the signatures of celebrated men who came here before they were celebrated,—Bismarck's as assessor in 1843, Caprivi's as lieutenant, Waldersee's also as lieutenant, and others of the kind,—while, I repeat, we were innocently studying this book, Fate was busy tucking up her sleeves preparing to hit me harder than ever.
'It was not Fate,' interrupted the wise relative before alluded to, as I sat after my return recounting my adventures and trying to extract sympathy, 'it was the first consequence of your having meddled. If you had not——'
Well, well. The great comfort about relatives is that though they may make what assertions they like you need not and do not believe them; and it was Fate and nothing but Fate that had dogged me malevolently all round Rügen and joined me here at Arkona once more to Mrs. Harvey-Browne. In she came while we were bending over the book, followed by the Professor, who walked as a man may walk in a dream, his eyes fixed on nothing, and asked me without more ado whether I would let her share my carriage as far as Wiek.
'Then, you see, dear Frau X., I shall get there,' she observed.
'But why do you want to get there?' I asked, absolutely knocked over this time by the fists of Fate.