"I must see her for myself," she said at length, when he had stammered into silence. "You must bring her to me."
"No, that you really can't ask me to do."
She came over to him again, and took his hands. "You will bring her here to-morrow—to-morrow afternoon. Do you think I shall hurt her? Is she any better than I am? Oh, don't be afraid! We are not so easily soiled."
Maurice demurred no more.
"For until I see her, I shall not know—I shall not know," she said to herself, when he had pledged his word.
The tense expression of her face relaxed; her mouth drooped; she lay back in the sofa-corner and shut her eyes. For what seemed a long time, there was no sound in the room. Maurice thought she had fallen asleep. But at his first light movement she opened her eyes.
"Now go," she said. "Please, go!" And he obeyed.
The night was cold, but, as he stood irresolute in the street, he wiped the perspiration from his forehead. He felt very perplexed. Only one thing was clear to him: he had promised to bring Ephie to see her the next day, and, however wrong it might be, the promise was given and must be kept. But what he now asked himself was: did not the bringing of the child, under these circumstances, imply a tacit acknowledgment that she was seriously involved?—a fact which, all along, he had striven against admitting. For, after his one encounter with Ephie and Schilsky, in the woods that summer, and the first firing of his suspicions, he had seen nothing else to render him uneasy; a few weeks later, Ephie had gone to Switzerland, and, on her return in September, or almost directly afterwards—three or four days at most—Schilsky had taken his departure. There had been, of course, his drunken boasts to take into account, but firstly, Maurice had only retained a hazy idea of their nature, and, in the next place, the events which had followed that evening had been of so much greater importance to him that he had had no thoughts to spare for Ephie—more especially as he then knew that Schilsky was out of the way. But now the whole affair rose vividly before his mind again, and in his heart he knew that he had always believed—just as Louise believed—in Ephie's guilt. No: guilt was too strong a word. Yet however harmless the flirtation might have been in itself, it had been carried on in secret, in an underhand way: there had been nothing straightforward or above-board about it; and this alone was enough to compromise a young girl.
The Cayhills had been in Leipzig again for three weeks, but so occupied had Maurice been during this time, that he had only paid them one hasty call. Now he felt that he must see Ephie at once, not only to secure her word that she would come out with him, the following day, but also to read from her frank eyes and childish lips the assurance of her innocence, or, at least, the impossibility of her guilt.
But as he walked to the LESSINGSTRASSE, he remembered, without being able to help it, all the trifles which, at one time or another, had disturbed his relations with Ephie. He recalled each of the thin, superficial untruths, by means of which she had defended herself, the day he had met her with Schilsky: it seemed incredible to him now that he had not seen through them instantly. He called up her pretty, insincere behaviour with the circle of young men that gathered round her; the language of signs by which she had conversed with Schilsky in the theatre. He remembered the astounding ease with which he had made her acquaintance in the first case, or rather, with which she had made his. Even the innocent kiss she had once openly incited him to, and on the score of which she had been so exaggeratedly angry—this, too, was summoned to bear witness against her. Each of these incidents now seemed to point to a fatal frivolity, to a levity of character which, put to a real test, would offer no resistance.