"We are really here already!" she said. "What a pity! I could walk for hours. It seems to me as if time stood still when I am hanging on your arm. But I must relieve my old Erich, who is sitting up until I come. Good-night, dearest!"
"Here?" he asked, painfully surprised--"here, in the cold street? It is warm in your rooms."
"And for that very reason," she said, softly, "we should find it so much the harder to part."
"Julie!" he cried, passionately clasping her to his breast, "must we part? Can you send me away, when we have not been able to say a confidential word to one another all this evening? If you but knew how I felt--"
She gently withdrew from his embrace. "Dearest," she whispered, "I know only too well. Do you suppose it costs me no struggle to have more sense than you, you wild man? To still make myself out a girl without a hearty while all the while I can feel the poor disobedient thing beating only too wildly? Oh, my darling, if you and I were only alone in the world--"
"Who is there besides ourselves who can separate us from one another?" he cried, hotly.
She laid her soft hand entreatingly upon his mouth. There were some people passing who stopped to listen to his loud voice. "Be quiet, dearest!" she whispered. "Be good, be gentle, be patient for just a little while longer; and think, too, of my own feeling. Have you forgotten that I have determined to be a good mother to our little Frances? I always want to be able to look her in the eyes, and on our marriage-day, too, when I wear the bridal-wreath that I have honorably deserved. The happiness of belonging to you is so great that it may well be worth a time of probation. And now good-night, until to-morrow, and don't be angry with me. Some time you will thank me for having to-day made myself out stronger--than I really am."
With these words she threw her arms tightly round his neck, and gave him a long and loving kiss. Then she hastily escaped, opened the gate, and vanished down the dark garden-walk that led to the house-door. He waited to see the light appear in her window; he could not feel reconciled to parting from her in this way. But she knew that it would only be the harder for him to tear himself away if he should see a light in her window. With throbbing pulse and burning cheeks she entered the dark room, refusing to take the lamp which the old servant had in readiness. So she undressed herself by the faint light that penetrated through the blinds, and hastily sought her bed, to lie a long time sleepless, thinking of all the happiness that was in store for her.
Nor did Rosenbusch make any great haste to take his lady home. They were both in a very merry mood, and he especially made so many brilliant jokes that he kept her laughing continually. It was by sheer oversight that they suddenly found themselves standing at last before her house and Angelica expressed her surprise that the way had been so short. It was so refreshing to be out in the cold winter night, after all the punch and laughter.
A droschky drove slowly past. Rosenbusch proposed that they should take a drive to the Nymphenburg. But she would not hear of such a thing, but advised him to go home like a respectable person, and not to seek companions in some wine-house and spend the night with them in drinking; he had more in his head already than was good for him. But when she did not succeed in getting the house-door unlocked, she had to put up with his remark that her hand did not seem to be a very steady one either. "A man must guide her steps," he sang from the "Zauberflöte," as he took the key from her and opened the door with a smart wrench. "It was very true," she said, "she did not know how to manage latch-keys as well as certain night-birds. But now, many thanks and goodnight!"