The words were spoken. They could not be recalled. Reeling a step forwards, he stared at her dully.
"What--what does that mean?" Every drop of blood had forsaken his face.
"You must know perfectly well what it means;" and she turned to go.
He would have liked to shake her, to question her, and force her to speak. But he had not the courage. It seemed to him that from the lips of this child he had been condemned.
In silence they walked to the landing-place; in silence he rowed her over the stream; in silence they parted. Two who, because they belonged to each other, determined to go through life as enemies.
XXV
The reconciliation of the two women removed the last obstacle that stood in the way of Leo resuming his old relations with his friend. Nevertheless, things remained as they were.
Leo did his utmost to deceive himself, and yet every fresh meeting afforded him little else but anxiety and nervous oppression of spirit! When he searched his heart honestly, he could not wonder that it was so. Formerly, when he had reviewed his position with an untroubled glance he had taken for granted that the ghost of the past should stand between him and his friend, unless the whole naked, shameless truth should be brought to the light of day and confessed But that such a confession would be an impossible villainy seemed equally to be taken for granted. So there thus remained no other choice but to perpetrate a not less grave, though less ruinous villainy, i.e. to act a lie--the same crooked, cringing, smiling lie, day after day, in the house of the unsuspecting man, and to betray the master and well-beloved at every cock-crow afresh. To keep away now was out of the question. He could in no way have justified such a course. In these short and rainy autumn days it was no longer possible to avoid Felicitas, and he was obliged to own to himself that he no longer wished to avoid her. Those understanding looks which one hour he abhorred consoled him the next, for they were eloquent of sympathy and gratitude.
He would even have liked to be oftener alone with her. For although such interviews meant an amalgam of shame, remorse, slackness, and cynicism, they necessitated no lying. One spoke the truth without restraint, however abominable the subject one talked on might be.
But what was worst of all was the uncertainty about Ulrich's attitude towards him. For a long time he had not been sure how to interpret it. He kept vigilant watch on his friend's ever-varying expression, as if to ascertain whether he had guessed anything since they last met, and so the flow of easy and natural converse dried up in his throat. Whatever he did, he was tormented by the probability of Ulrich having gathered from his intercourse with Felicitas some hint that roused his suspicions; he might, by the process of putting two and two together, and by recalling and comparing incidents, be drawing conclusions and nearing the discovery of the hideous truth. So absorbed was he by the idea, that sometimes it seemed to him almost inconceivable that Ulrich should not have drawn such conclusions, and there were certain hours when he firmly believed that his friend's geniality was a mere mask, which he assumed to draw him into a trap.