GO AND EXPLAIN THAT IT IS QUITE IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO COME, she wrote. LOUISE IS VERY ILL; THE DOCTOR IS AFRAID OF BRAIN FEVER. I AM RUSHING, OFF THIS MOMENT TO SEE ABOUT A NURSE—AND SHALL STAY TILL ONE COMES.
He read the words mechanically, without taking in their meaning. From the paper, his eyes roved round the room; he saw the tumbled, unopened bed, from which he had just risen, the traces of his boots on the coverings. He could not remember how he had come there; his last recollection was of being turned out of Krafft's room, in what seemed to be still the middle of the night. Since getting home, he must have slept a dead sleep.
"Ill? Brain fever?" he repeated to himself, and his mind strove to pierce the significance of the words. What had happened? Why should she be ill? A racking uneasiness seized him and would not let him rest. His inclination was to lay his aching head on the pillow again; but this was out of the question; and so, though he seldom braved Frau Krause, he now boldly went to her with a request to warm up his coffee.
When he had drunk it, and bathed his head, he felt considerably better. But he still could not call to mind what had occurred. The previous evening was blurred in its details; he only had a sense of oppression when he thought of it, as of something that had threatened, and still did. He was glad to have a definite task before him, and went out at once, in order to catch Schwarz before he left the Conservatorium; but it was too late; the master's door was locked. It was a bright, cold day with strong sunlight; Maurice's eyes ached, and he shrank from the wind at every corner. Instead of going home, he went to Madeleine's room and sat down to wait for her. She had evidently been away since early morning; the piano was dusty and unopened; the blind at the head of it had not been drawn up. It was a pleasant dusk; he put his arms on the table, his head on his arms, and, in spite of his anxiety, fell into a sound sleep.
He was wakened by Madeleine's entrance. It was three o'clock. She came bustling in, took off her hat, laid it on the piano, and at once drew up the blind. She was not surprised to find him there, but exclaimed at his appearance.
"Good gracious, Maurice, how dreadful you look! Are you ill?"
He hastened to reassure her, and she was a little put out at her wasted sympathy.
"Well, no wonder, I'm sure, after the doings there were last night. A pretty way to behave! And that you should have mixed yourself up in it as you did!—I wouldn't have believed it of you. How I know? My dear boy, it's the talk of the place."
Her words called up to him a more lucid remembrance of the past evening than he had yet been capable of. In his eagerness to recollect everything, he changed colour and looked away. Madeleine put his confusion down to another cause.
"Never mind, it's over now, and we won't say any more about it. Sit still, and I'll make you some tea. That will do your head good—for you have a splitting headache, haven't you? I shall be glad of some myself, too, after all the running about I've had this morning. I'm quite worn out."