"Certainly. A wonderful flaxen-haired blonde with eyes as blue as forget-me-nots, but for all that she is not sentimental, and is less like the moon than like the sun. She was here at Frau Zülow's Pension, and at fourteen she was already surrounded and courted."
"At the Pension?"
"Not really at the Pension and not every day, but on Sundays when she went to lunch with old Osten, the one whom you have just seen. Katherine, Katherine Sellenthin!... she was like a rail then, and that is what we used to call her, and she was the most charming little hoyden that you can imagine. I can still see her braid of hair, which we always called the distaff. And Rienäcker will now have a chance to spin it off. Well, why not? It will not be so difficult for him."
"After all, it may be more difficult than many think," answered Wedell. "And while he certainly needs his finances improved, yet I am not sure that he would decide at once in favor of the blond beauty from his own province. For you must know that Rienäcker has for some time past enjoyed another tint, indeed ash-blond, and if what Balafré lately told me is true, he has been seriously considering whether he should not raise his blanchisseuse to the rank of la dame blanche. He sees no distinction between Castle Avenal and Castle Zehden. A castle is a castle and, you know, Rienäcker, who for that matter, goes his own way in many things, was always in favor of naturalness."
"Yes," laughed Pitt. "That he was. But Balafré draws the long bow and invents interesting tales. You are sober, Wedell, and will not be ready to believe such made up nonsense."
"No, it is not imaginary," said Wedell. "But I believe what I know. Rienäcker, in spite of his six feet, or perhaps because of them, is weak and easily guided and is peculiarly gentle and tenderhearted."
"He certainly is. But circumstances will compel him and he will break away and free himself, at the worst like a fox out of a trap. It is painful and a bit of one's life is left behind. But the main thing is to get out again--out, out and free. Long live Katherine! And Rienäcker! What does the proverb say? 'God helps those who help themselves.'"
[CHAPTER IX]
That evening Botho wrote to Lena that he would come on the following day, perhaps even earlier than usual. And he kept his word and arrived an hour before sunset. Naturally he found Frau Dörr there. The air was very fine and not too warm, and after they had talked a while, Botho said:
"Perhaps we could go into the garden."