She saw nothing comical in his frequent linguistic stumblings that would naturally lead to melting moods. As the Germans have, of course, little humor, she found in these faulty exhibitions only causes for disappointed glances and reprimands approaching severity. Often you would have thought he was a boy of ten reciting his lesson at her knee.
"Now Thursday by half past ten, you must have that line right or I will scold you." And she would sometimes laugh a little in her discouragement.
She looked upon it as a duty, a voluntary drudgery, but which, she assured him, she was most pleased to do. For she loved Heine—raved about him, like sentimental German maids. She could never go over his verse often enough. And so she encouraged Gard to keep on. It was a reflected part of her normal disciplined life of acquisition.
After a month of these tactics he realized he was making no headway toward—he did not acknowledge what. Young men as a type did not seem to Elsa of special interest any more than a hundred other objects on earth. And then the cold weather before long put an end to the little promenades of rime by the shore, and Gard had to try other lines of attack on this radiant and beflowered German fortress.
The park of fir trees lay quite beyond the meadow. It was a silent, evocative spot, unfrequented except for a peasant now and then trudging along under a bundle of wood or a weather-beaten basket of provisions. Kirtley had managed to stray that far once with Elsa, but learned that the mother was expected to accompany at such distances. It provoked his silent comment,
"As nearly as I can estimate, about a half a mile from home is all that is allowed a German miss unchaperoned."
It was the same when he invited Fräulein to the opera or theater. The parent must attend. As she was equally occupied, it did not appear easy for him to arrange for the two. Besides, Frau Bucher killed everything under these confounding and confounded circumstances. She sat between him and her daughter and ruled the conversation. It was little better than taking her alone, so he abandoned also these enterprises.
In the talk at table the family, with Teuton tactlessness, now and then cried out the surpassing merits of the German young man. Unquestionably he led all others. Gard met no success in stemming the tide, miffed as he was about this social seclusion of the daughter. He soon saw his mistake in feeling personally hurt, as if insulted. It was but the custom. Could it be indeed a fact that German youths were such moral reprobates that girls could not be trusted to their unguarded companionship? The question had no meaning to his hosts. It was useless to hint of such an idea, burning as he often was to launch it upon the waves of discussion. To them, chaperoning signified the highest morals.
They exploded with, "It may very well be as you say in America! That is to be expected. Are there any morals in the United States? We have heard awful things. There are the Mormons. There is co-education. And young girls of the best families go around loose with men day and night. What could be the result? Free love. And free love means cheap love or no love at all. Admittedly pretty low conditions for virtue. What else can be looked for in a country where all sorts of people come promiscuously from everywhere? Divorces, voting females, slatterns, homelessness, neglected, poorly educated children."
If, in passing, America and Americans were referred to in the family, and this was rare, Elsa, Gard noticed, kept silent. Yet she could be very wrought up about other Europeans. This nursed his fancies. He interpreted it in terms of promise. Elsa, he decided, was a good girl in a hedge-hog environment of unbelievable traits, of warring contrasts.