Boris wrote. There was no heading. "Tonight," the letter read, "at about midnight, I shall be down by the linden near the park, waiting. No one must know. On one side stands everything that you have till now regarded as your life, on the other I stand--decide. If you take me, then come. If you do not come, I shall forgive you and again walk in loneliness my dark road. We shall never meet again. To approach so great a happiness and then be obliged to forsake it again, is fatal." There was also no signature. Billy dropped the letter; she did not need to decide, she knew that she would go to him. It seemed to her as if she scarcely had a voice in this, for the other, the alien Billy, was acting, and it was she who must go down by night to the lime-tree. Billy's glance fell upon Marion, whose eyes were fixed on her in boundless expectancy. Billy smiled and shook her head a little and said, "No, I can tell you nothing." Marion did not answer, but her eyes filled with tears. She rose and crept softly out of the room; she was very unhappy. During the whole time she had felt as if Billy's love-affair were hers too; she had shared her love for Boris, the excitements and pains, she had felt herself loved in Billy's person, and now she was suddenly thrust aside and was again simply Marion Bonnechose, who was excluded from all the destinies awaiting countesses.
But activity and life came over Billy. She rang for Lina, asked for her new muslin dress with the pink carnation figure, and called for her coral necklace; and moreover she was friendly and talkative to the chambermaid. Lina had to tell her about the forester to whom she was provisionally engaged.
The day had grown very sultry, and in the west gray-blue clouds were piled up. "We shall have a thunderstorm," said Count Hamilcar, as he stood on the porch steps and sniffed the hot air of the garden. Countess Betty stood beside him, bending her head to one side and blinking up at the clouds. Over the garden walks Bob and Billy were chasing each other. The count followed them with his eyes, then he turned to his sister: "The emotional crisis seems to be passing off nicely," he remarked.
Countess Betty however looked frightened. "Oh dear, Hamilcar, I don't know, this merriment is not natural; I am so afraid for the child. Madame Bonnechose thinks too ..."
"Do not worry, dear Betty," the count interrupted her, "whatever Madame Bonnechose may think. Young people like to regard love as a force, which is elemental, irrational, but irresistible; very well, then this force must simply be opposed by another force which may also pass for elemental, for irrational and irresistible. Well, dear Betty, to represent that force is now my role." He smiled his wry, mocking smile, and went into the house to take his afternoon nap.
Billy was tired with running. "Enough," she cried to Bob. She brushed the hair out of her hot face and thought a moment. What should she do now?--for she must do something, something, anything but keep still and look into the darkness that lay beyond this day. When little Miss Demme went past her, she took her arm, saying, "Come, let's eat plums and talk about Mr. Post." But during these afternoon hours, when the sun rested upon the garden like a heavy, golden sleepiness, it was hard for Billy to keep alive the fever that she now required. Finally she went to hunt up Moritz and ask him to take her rowing on the pond in the garden.
"What, you and I?" asked Moritz, somewhat astonished and blushing.
"You and I, of course," said Billy.
That seemed to be the right thing. Billy found it soothing to stretch out in a half reclining position in the bow of the boat, and have Moritz's heated, peaceful face before her, with the blue eyes that looked at her unswervingly with satisfied devotion. The water was very black; here and there a coating of green plants lay on top of it, which scraped softly along the keel of the boat. How wearily the old willows bent over the water, and a secure, contented uneventfulness dwelt here, an uneventfulness which made Billy weak and cowardly. Why can it not go on so, she thought. As the little crucians lie motionless on the surface of the water in the sunshine, only stirring their fins a little from time to time, just to feel they are alive,--that must feel good. But suddenly she had a recollection that was like a prick of conscience. She felt as if she were neglecting or betraying something. She started up.
"Row to shore," she commanded. Moritz looked up in astonishment. "Yes, yes, to shore," repeated Billy impatiently. And once on shore, when Moritz lifted her out of the boat, Billy felt that she must do something which would contradict the aristocratic calm of this quiet pond, the little crucians, and the old willows, something which would slap it in the face, and she bent forward and kissed Moritz. "But Billy, I don't understand," stammered Moritz, turning a deep red, but Billy had gone.