On that Monday so fatal for the Jordan family, Philippina had another violent quarrel with her mother. Theresa was still shrieking, when Jason Philip came up from the shop to know what could be wrong.
“Don’t ask,” cried Theresa at the top of her shrill voice, “go teach your daughter some manners. The wench is going to end up in jail; that’s what I prophesy.”
Philippina made a wry face. Jason Philip, however, was little inclined to play the rôle of an avenging power: he had something new on the string; his face was beaming.
“I met Hornbusch,” he said, turning to Theresa, “you know him, firm of Hornbusch heirs, bloody rich they are, and the man tells me that young Jordan has embezzled some money from the Prudentia and left the country. I went at once to the Prudentia, and Zittel told me the whole story, just as I had heard it. It is almost four thousand marks! Jordan has been requested to make good the deficit; but he hasn’t a penny to his name and is in a mighty tight place, for Diruf is threatening to send him to jail. You know, Diruf is hard-boiled in matters of this kind. What do you think of that?”
Theresa wrapped her hands in her apron, and looked at Jason Philip out of the corner of her eye. She guessed at once the cause of his joy, and hung her head in silence.
Jason Philip smirked to himself. Leaning up against the Dutch tiles of the stove, he began to whistle in a happy-go-lucky mood. It was the “Marseillaise.” He whistled it partly out of forgetfulness and partly from force of habit.
He had not noticed how Philippina had listened to every syllable that fell from his lips; how she was holding her breath; that her features were lighted up from within by a terrible flame of fire. He did notice, however, that she got up at the close of his remarks and left the room with rustling steps.
Five minutes later she was standing before Jordan’s house. She sent a small boy in with the request that Fräulein Eleanore come down at once. The boy came back, and said that Fräulein Eleanore was not at home. She took her position by the front gate, and waited.
XI
Driven by the torment of her soul, Eleanore had gone to Martha Rübsam’s only to hear that her father had been there three hours earlier. From the confused and embarrassed conduct of her friend she learned that her father had made a request of Judge Rübsam, and a fruitless one at that.