‘Ah, if only you had not been so chivalrous and so mistaken as to marry me, Rudolf. I fear it has been a terrible error on both sides.’
‘Do you think so? We had better give it a little longer trial, I think, hadn’t we?’ he asked composedly, while he glanced rather keenly at her face. ‘Do you, perhaps, feel tired of this place? Would you like change of scene or company? Is there no one you would like to have with you? Miss Wellfield, for example?’
‘No. Avice has found a life at home. It is astonishing how she develops, how quickly she is growing into a woman, and a thoughtful one. She finds that her sister-in-law needs her presence greatly, and I gather from her letters, though she evidently has no idea of it herself, that she also will marry before long, and that happily.’
‘Then you will not ask her to come and see you?’
‘No, thank you. I have thought about it, and I am sure that this is the best place for me. Solitude will not drive me mad. Let this be Mein Genügen–I will make it so for a time longer, if you will allow me. If I am to find peace anywhere, and a path through life, it will be here.’
‘So be it. And since such is the decision you have come to, I may tell you the more freely that I have come to-day to say good-bye for a long time. I am going on a journey, and before I go I want to have a little talk with you on business, if you don’t mind.’
‘Going away!’ uttered Sara, startled. ‘Where?’
‘Oh, to wander about indefinitely–auf eine Reise in’s Blaue, as my own people would say. I am not going alone. A friend of mine, an artist, Rupert Schwermuth, goes with me, or rather, I offered to join him when I heard he was intending to travel and study. He means to go to Greece amongst other places, China, and Japan: he raves about Japanese art. I am going to rough it with him, by way of a change.’
Sara found she had absolutely nothing to answer to this. To object would, she felt, be worse than absurd; to say she was glad would not be true, for with the knowledge that he was going so far away, came a sudden chill sense of prospective loneliness and desolation; yet she must say something, she felt, and at last managed to stammer out:
‘I think you do wisely. I hope you will enjoy your tour. But ... will you write to me?’