A light leaped into the father’s eyes; a look of pain followed it quickly.
“And I shall never leave thee,” said Sigmund.
Eugen parried the necessity of speaking by a kiss.
“I love thee too, Friedel,” continued he, taking my hand. “We are very happy together, aren’t we?” And he laughed placidly to himself.
Eugen, as if stung by some tormenting thought, sprung up and we left the wood.
Oh, far back, by-gone day! There was a soft light over you shed by a kindly sun. That was a time in which joy ran a golden thread through the gray homespun of every-day life.
Back to the restauration at the foot of the berg, where Sigmund was supplied with milk and Eugen and I with beer, where we sat at a little wooden table in a garden and the pleasant clack of friendly conversation sounded around; where the women tried to make friends with Sigmund, and the girls whispered behind their coffee-cups or (pace, elegant fiction!) their beer-glasses, and always happened to be looking up if our eyes roved that way. Two poor musiker and a little boy; persons of no importance whatever, who could scrape their part in the symphony with some intelligence and feel they had done their duty. Well, well! it is not all of us who can do even so much. I know some instruments that are always out of tune. Let us be complacent where we justly can. The opportunities are few.
We took our way home. The days were long, and it was yet light when we returned and found the reproachful face of Frau Schmidt looking for us, and her arms open to receive the weary little lad who had fallen asleep on his father’s shoulder.
I went upstairs, and, by a natural instinct, to the window. Those facing it were open; some one moved in the room. Two chords of a piano were struck. Some one came and stood by the window, shielded her eyes from the rays of the setting sun which streamed down the street and looked westward. Eugen was passing behind me. I pulled him to the window, and we both looked—silently, gravely.
The girl dropped her hand; her eyes fell upon us. The color mounted to her cheek; she turned away and went to the interior of the room. It was May Wedderburn.