"Can't he marry her?" asked Billy timidly.
The old man struck angrily at his white horse. "Marry? Marry who? Where is the man to marry? Where is our handsome machinist at the saw-mill? 'Cause he's got yellow cat's-eyes, they all run after him. Anna at the watermill has come to it too now. Ye-ep, you can't stop it; soon as spring comes, the young hussies are out o' nights, as restless as the bees before a thunderstorm, and you can beat 'em, you can tie 'em, but in a jiffy--off they put. Now at this time o' year it don't happen so often," added the old man with a sidelong glance at Billy.
She smiled. "Yes," she thought, "in a spring night, when we grow as restless as the bees before a thunderstorm, then maybe there is this Being-happy and this Dying, that Boris was talking about, but there"--she shrank and shuddered: she did not even wish to think of it, she still had a long ride before her, and later she would think it all over. Good, good, but no thinking now, just listen to the sleepy tinkle of the little bells.
Gradually however the region became more familiar, here and there stood a farmer in Sunday coat among his fields, whose face Billy recalled, and finally Kadullen rose in the distance between the great trees of the park; a cool green spot in the sun-yellow land.
Billy drew herself up; she suddenly became quite wakeful; it was almost torturing, how abruptly all her dream world fell away from her and the former Billy was present once more with the responsibility for what she had done, with the fear and shame before all those people yonder. She saw distinctly Marion's eyes, Aunt Betty's helpless little face, and her father's severe white nose. They had probably found the slip of paper she had left behind. She tried to think what was on it. "I am with him." Lord, how stupid that sounded! And now they were coming closer and closer to the house. If only she could get to her room unnoticed by way of the little staircase: no one would recognize her in Lina's clothes, and once upstairs in her room she would lock the door and let nobody in and sleep--sleep. Perhaps that would take some burden from her; perhaps when she then awoke everything would be different, everything better.
"Oh please," she said, "we'll stop at the little gate in the park wall over there."
The old man nodded indifferently, turned into the side road, and stopped before the small gate in the park wall. When Billy had got out, she stood still a moment and said hesitantly: "I suppose I must pay."
"'s all right," answered the old man with a bad grace, "I'm going to deliver some honey in the courtyard anyway."
"But not right away," pleaded Billy.
"I know, I know the game," murmured the old man, "needn't tell me."