"Forgive me! Not yet. That after all you should care a little! After all ... that you should care so much!"
"And it is for ever?"
"For ever and ever ... what do you take me for? But not here! Let us go away—to some new place. We will make it our very own."
Their words came in haste, yet haltingly; were all but inaudible whispers; went flying back and forwards, like brief cries for aid, implying a peculiar sense of aloofness, of being cut adrift and thrown on each other's mercy.
Louise raised her head.
"Yes, we will go away. But now, Maurice—at once!"
"Yes. To-night ... to-morrow ... when you like."
The next morning, he set out to find a place. Three weeks of the term had still to run, and he was to have played in an ABENDUNTERHALTUNG, before the vacation. But, compared with the emotional upheaval he had undergone, this long-anticipated event was of small consequence. To Schwarz, he alleged a succession of nervous headaches, which interfered with his work. His looks lent colour to the statement; and though, as a rule, highly irritated by opposition to his plans, Schwarz only grumbled in moderation. He would have let no one else off so easily, and, at another time, the knowledge of this would have rankled in Maurice, as affording a fresh proof of the master's indifference towards him. As it was, he was thankful for the freedom it secured him.
On the strength of a chance remark of Madeleine's, which he had remembered, he found what he looked for, without difficulty. It could not have been better: a rambling inn, with restaurant, set in a clearing on the top of a wooded hill, with an open view over the undulating plains.
That night, he wrote to Louise from the Rochlitzer Berg, painting the nest he had found for them in glowing colours, and begging her to come without delay. But the whole of the next day passed without a word from her, and the next again, and not till the morning of the third, did he receive a note, announcing her arrival for shortly after midday. He took it with him to the woods, and lay at full length on the moss.