“When he returns from Africa I’ll flee with him on his ship,” Letitia determined, as she rode home slowly across the dark plain. Everything else seemed ugly and a bore to her. “Oh, if only it were to be soon,” she thought in her anxiety and heart-ache. And curiosity stirred in her to know how Pestel would behave and master the dangers and the difficulties involved. She believed in him, and gave herself up to tender and tempting dreams of the future.
In the house her absence had finally been noticed, and servants had been sent out to look for her. She slipped into the house by obscure paths, and then emerged from her room with an air of innocence.
XVIII
Stettner had returned to Hamburg. His ship was to sail on that very evening. He had several errands in the city, and Christian and Crammon waited for him in order to accompany him to the pier.
Crammon said: “A captain of Hussars who suddenly turns up in mufti—I can’t help it, there’s something desperate about it to me. I feel as though I were on a perpetual visit of condolence. After all, he’s déclassé, and I don’t like people in that situation. Social classes are a divine institution; a man who interferes with them wounds his own character. One doesn’t throw up one’s profession the way one tosses aside a rotten apple. These are delicate and difficult matters. Common sense may disregard them; the higher intelligence reverences them. What is he going to do among the Yankees? What good can come of it?”
“He’s a chemist by inclination, and scholarly in his line,” Christian answered. “That will help.”
“What do the Yankees care about that? He’s more likely to catch consumption and be trodden under. He’ll be stripped of pride and dignity. It’s a country for thieves, waiters, and renegades. Did he have to go as far as all this?”
“Yes,” Christian answered, “I believe he did.”
An hour later they and Stettner arrived at the harbour. Cargoes and luggage were still being stowed, and they strolled, Stettner between Crammon and Christian, up and down a narrow alley lined with cotton-bales, boxes, barrels, and baskets. The arc lamps cast radiant light from the tall masts, and a tumult of carts and cranes, motors and bells, criers and whistles rolled through the fog. The asphalt was wet; there was no sky to be seen.
“Don’t forget me wholly here in the old land,” said Stettner. A silence followed.