CHAPTER VII.
LIFE’S FULLEST STREAM.
The daylight lasts late in July. Though growing dusk in the house, it was yet broad daylight on the balcony of the room in which Jerome left his sister, when he set out to find Sara Ford’s house. It was still broad daylight out of doors, and the streets were thronged with pleasure-seekers, and with the feet of those on business intent. He had Sara’s address—Jägerstrasse, No. 42. He inquired the way there, and was directed to go through a pleasant green Hofgarten, whose cool avenues and great trees were just now glorified by the yellow rays of the setting sun. Somewhere, in the direction of that setting sun, he knew the Rhine wandered by the town. He had heard Sara describe how broad and strong was its course just there, and what a fascination it had for her, despite the unpicturesque, low, flat banks on either side. As he went along, his heart was light, despite the heavy load of cares and anxiety which hung over him.
Sounds of music or singing greeted him wherever he went, as they do in those homely continental towns devoted to art and to sentiment. There was a pleasant, homely bustle going on. The town was small. One could not easily have lost oneself in it. To find the Jägerstrasse was no difficult matter, and once there it was easier still to discover No. 42, which was a great white house of many stories, with an arched passage running through it from front to back, and heavy iron gates, at present thrown back. He went into the passage, and to the side door, which had the names of the different inhabitants put up. ‘Miss S. Ford, 2te Etage,’ he read, and pulled the bell twice. His summons was presently answered by a middle-aged woman with a strong, sensible, good English face, about whose whole aspect there was a harmony, and in whose dress there was an appropriateness and suitability which were nothing short of admirable.
‘Is Miss Ford at home?’ he asked, like one in a dream; for, up to the moment of pulling the bell, he had been engaged in a puzzling mental debate as to whether he ought or ought not to come—whether duty did not clearly indicate the preferableness of bringing his sister with him, or sending a note to Miss Ford, and not calling at all.
He was not in the habit of having difficult and delicate questions of this kind to decide, and he had dallied with this one until the second had arrived in which he must either pull the bell, and go in and see her, or turn back, and go away without seeing her. At which moment the latter alternative had appeared so horrible that he had lost not an instant in availing himself of the former one.
Miss Ford was at home. She had returned yesterday, said the woman, and asked him to come upstairs, taking the card he offered her, as she spoke. He accordingly followed her till she threw open a door, and entered a room where it seemed twilight; for it faced due south, and there was only a pale reflection to be seen of the westerly glow.
In the window, in a large lounging chair, he saw a woman’s figure, in a light dress, which figure had a book in its hands, and leaned towards the light as if to catch ‘the last pale beam of even.’ He saw how she turned as her servant gave her his card, took it, read it, and rose. Then—he did not quite know how it was—they were alone, standing hand in hand, looking at one another, speechless. In the suddenness and the greatness of the joy of meeting, they could not be conventional. They failed entirely to use the requisite words of polite surprise and delight which, if promptly uttered, conceal so many a throb of joy—so many a spasm of pain. The ‘Really, what a surprise! Where do you come from?’ The answering, ‘Passing through on my way to England, and could not resist the pleasure of calling’—none of it all was forthcoming. The surprise on her side was too real, the joy on both too intense, to leave room for any of those prettinesses.