The blue-clad Mother was in the most terrible suspense; every moment she expected a signal from the garden and the coast was not clear, nobody could come through it so long as her husband would not leave the house. Ah, that husband, that husband, with his forty years and his bald head! What sinister thoughts could they be that made him so pale this evening and kept him sitting in his chair, immovably, inexorably, staring at his paper?
She had not a minute's peace; now it was eleven o'clock. The children she had put to bed long ago; but the husband did not budge. What if the signal came? The door would be opened with the dear little latch-key—and two men would meet, stand face to face and look into each other's eyes! She dared not finish the thought.
She went away to the darkest corner of the room, wrung her hands, and at last said straight out:
"Now it's eleven. If you are going to the club you must go now."
He got up at once, even paler than before, and went out of the room, out of the house.
Outside the garden he stopped and listened to a whistle, a little signal. Steps were heard on the gravel, a key was put into the latch and turned—a moment later there were two shadows on the drawing-room blind.
And he recognized the signal, the steps and the two shadows on the blind, none of it was new to him.
He went to the club. It was open, there were lights in the windows; but he did not go in. For half an hour he roamed about the streets and in front of his garden, an endless half-hour. Let me wait another quarter of an hour, he thought, and he prolonged it to three quarters. Then he entered the garden, went up the steps and rang at his own door.
The maid came and opened it, just put her head out and said:
"Madam has long since...."