Botho started back a little.
"And I want to add at once," Franke went on, "that it is nothing troublesome that has brought me here. What I wish to say, or if you will permit me, Herr Baron, to ask, will cause no inconvenience to you or to your family. I already know that your gracious lady, the Frau Baroness is away, and I carefully waited until you should be alone, or, if I may say so, until you should be a grass widower."
Botho's discriminating ear perceived that, in spite of his rather ordinary middle-class clothes, the man was frank and high-minded. This soon helped him to get over his embarrassment and he had recovered his usual calmness of manner, as he asked, across the table: "Are you a relative of Lena's? Pardon me, Herr Franke, for calling my old friend by the old name of which I am so fond."
Franke bowed and replied: "No, Herr Baron, no relative; I have not that right to speak. But my right is perhaps quite as good: I have known Lena for a year and more and I intend to marry her. She has given her consent, but on that occasion she told me of her previous life and spoke of you so affectionately, that I at once determined to ask you yourself, Herr Baron, freely and openly, what you can tell me about Lena. When I told Lena of my intention, she at first encouraged me gladly, but immediately afterwards she added, that I might as well not ask you, as you would be sure to speak too well of her."
Botho looked straight before him and found it difficult to control the beating of his heart. Finally, however, he mastered himself and said: "You are an excellent man, Herr Franke, and you want to make Lena happy. So much I can see at once, and that gives you a perfect right to an answer. I have no doubt at all as to what I ought to tell you, and I only hesitate as to how I shall tell it. The best way will be to tell you how it all began and continued and then how it came to an end."
Franke bowed once more, to show that he too agreed to this plan.
"Very well then," began Rienäcker, "it is about three years or perhaps a couple of months more, since on a boating excursion around the Liebesinsel near Treptow I had the opportunity of doing two young girls a service by preventing their boat from capsizing. One of these two young girls was Lena, and from her manner of thanking me, I saw at once that she was different from others. She was wholly free from affectation, both then and later, a fact which I specially wish to emphasise. For no matter how merry and at times almost boisterous she may be, yet she is naturally thoughtful, serious and simple."
Botho mechanically pushed aside the tray, which was still standing on the table, smoothed the cloth and then went on: "I asked leave to escort her home, and she consented without more ado, which at that time surprised me for a moment. For I did not yet know her. But I soon saw what it meant; from her youth on she had been accustomed to act according to her own judgment, without much regard for others, and in any case without fearing their opinion."
Franke nodded.
"So we went all the long distance together and I escorted her home and was delighted with all that I saw there, with the old mother, with the fireplace by which she sat, with the garden in which the house stood, and with the modest seclusion and stillness of the place. A quarter of an hour later I took my leave, and as I was saying good-bye to Lena at the garden gate, I asked whether I might come again, and she answered the question with a simple 'Yes.' She showed no false modesty, and yet was not unwomanly. On the contrary, there was something touching in her voice and manner."