"Wie? Was?" exclaimed Dellwig, who had dozed off, and was startled.

"She will—she will!" cried his wife.

"Will what? Ruin us? The Englaenderin? Ach was—Unsinn. She can be managed. It is Lohm who is the danger. It is Lohm who will ruin us. If we could get rid of him——"

"Ach Gott, if he would die!" exclaimed Frau Dellwig, with fervent hands raised heavenwards. "Ach Gott, if he would only die!"

"Ach Gott, ach Gott!" mimicked her husband irritably, for he disliked being suddenly awakened. "People never die when anything depends on it," he grumbled, turning over on his side. And he cursed Axel several times, and went to sleep.



CHAPTER XVIII

The philosopher tells us that, after the healing interval of sleep, we are prepared to meet each other every morning as gods and goddesses; so fresh, so strong, so lusty, so serene, did he consider the newly-risen and the some-time separated must of necessity be. It is a pleasing belief; and Experience, that hopelessly prosaic governess who never gives us any holidays, very quickly disposes of it. For what is to become of the god-like mood if only one in a company possess it? The middle-aged and old, who abound in all companies, are seldom god-like, and are never so at breakfast.

The morning after the arrival of the Chosen, Anna woke up in the true Olympian temper. She had been brought back to the happy world of realities from the happy world of dreams by the sun of an unusually lovely April shining on her face. She had only to open her window to be convinced that all which she beheld was full of blessings. Just beneath her window on the grass was a double cherry tree in flower, an exquisite thing to look down on with the sunshine and the bees busy among its blossoms. The unreasoning joyfulness that invariably took possession of her heart whenever the weather was fine, filled it now with a rapture of hope and confidence. This world, this wonderful morning world that she saw and smelt from her window, was manifestly a place in which to be happy. Everything she saw was very good. Even the remembrance of Dellwig was transfigured in that clear light. And while she dressed she took herself seriously to task for the depression of the night before. Depressed she had certainly been; and why? Simply because she was over-excited and over-tired, and her spirit was still so mortifyingly unable to rise superior to the weakness of her tiresome flesh. And to let herself be made wretched by Dellwig, merely because he talked loud and had convictions which she did not share! The god-like morning mood was strong upon her, and she contemplated her listless self of the previous evening, the self that had sat so long despondently thinking instead of going to bed, with contempt. These evening interviews with Dellwig, she reflected, were a mistake. He came at hours when she was least able to bear his wordiness and shouting, and it was the knowledge of his impending visit that made her irritable beforehand and ruffled the absolute serenity that she felt was alone appropriate in a house dedicated to love. But it was not only Dellwig and the brick-kiln that had depressed her; she had actually had doubts about her three new friends, doubts as to the receptivity of their souls, as to the capacity of their souls for returning love. At one awful moment she had even doubted whether they had souls at all, but had hastily blown out the candle at this point, extinguishing the doubt at the same time, smothering it beneath the bedclothes, and falling asleep at once, after the fashion of healthy young people.

Now, at the beginning of the new day, with all her misgivings healed by sleep, she thought calmly over the interview she had had with Frau von Treumann before supper; for it was that interview that had been the chief cause of her dejection. Frau von Treumann had told her an untruth, a quite obvious and absurd untruth in the face of the correspondence, as to the reason of her coming to Kleinwalde. She had said she had only come at the instigation of her son, who looked upon Anna as a deserving object of help. And Anna had been hurt, had been made miserable, by the paltriness of this fib. Her great desire was to reach her friends' souls quickly, to attain the beautiful intimacy in which the smallest fiction is unnecessary; and so little did Frau von Treumann understand her, that she had begun a friendship that was to be for life with an untruth that would not have misled a child. But see the effect of sleep and a gracious April morning. The very shabbiness and paltriness of the fib made Anna's heart yearn over the poor lady. Surely the pride that tried to hide its wounds with rags of such pitiful flimsiness was profoundly pathetic? With such pride, all false from Anna's point of view, but real and painful enough to its possessor, the necessity that drove her to accept Anna's offer must have been more cruel than necessity, always cruel, generally is. Her heart yearned over her friend as she dressed, and she felt that the weakness that must lie was a weakness greatly requiring love. For nobody, she argued, would ever lie unless driven to it by fear of some suffering. If, then, it made her happy, and made her life easier, let her think that Anna believed she had come for her sake. What did it matter? No one was perfect, and many people were surprisingly pathetic.

Meanwhile the day was glorious, and she went downstairs with the springy step of hope. She was thinking exhilarating thoughts, thinking that there were to be no ripples of misgivings and misunderstandings on the clear surface of this first morning. They would all look into each others' candid eyes at breakfast, and read a mutual consciousness of interests henceforward to be shared, of happiness to be shared, of life to be shared,—the life of devoted and tender sisters.

The hall door stood open, and the house was full of the smell of April; the smell of new leaves budding, of old leaves rotting, of damp earth, pine needles, wet moss, and marshes. "Oh, the lovely, lovely morning!" whispered Anna, running out on to the steps with outstretched arms and upturned face, as though she would have clasped all the beauty round and held it close. She drew in a long breath, and turned back into the house singing in an impassioned but half-suppressed voice the first verse of the Magnificat. The door leading to the kitchen opened, and to her surprise Baroness Elmreich emerged from those dark regions. The Magnificat broke off abruptly. Anna was surprised. Why the kitchen? The baroness saw her hostess's figure motionless against the light of the open door; but the light behind was strong and the hall was dark, and she thought it was Anna's back. Hoping that she had not been noticed she softly closed the door again and waited behind it till she could come out unseen.

Anna supposed that the princess must be showing her the servants' quarters, and went into the breakfast room; but in it sat the princess, making coffee.

"There you are," said the princess heartily. "That is nice. Now we can drink our coffee comfortably together before the others come down. Have you been out? You smell of fresh air."

"Only a moment on the doorstep."

"Come, sit next to me. You have slept well, I can see. Notice the advantage of coming straight in to breakfast, and not running about the forest—you get here first, and so get the best cup of coffee."

"But it isn't proper for me to have the best," said Anna, smiling as she took the cup, "when I have guests here."

"Yes, it is—very proper indeed. Besides, you told me they were sisters."

"So they are. Has the baroness not been here?"

"No, she is still in bed."

"No, I saw her a moment ago. I thought you were with her."

"Oh, my dear—so early in the morning!" protested the princess. "When did I see her last? Less than nine hours ago. She followed me into my bedroom and talked much. I could not begin again with her the first thing in the morning, even to please you." And she looked at Anna very affectionately. "You were tired last night, were you not?" she continued. "Axel Lohm stayed so late, I think he wanted to speak to you. But you went straight up to bed."

"I had seen him before he went in to you. He didn't want to speak to me. He was consumed by curiosity about our new friends."

"Was he? He did not show much interest in them. He talked to me nearly all the time. He thought for a moment that he knew the baroness—at least, he stared at her at first and seemed surprised. But it turned out that she was only like someone he knew. She had evidently never seen him before. It is a great pleasure to me to talk to that young man," the princess went on, while Anna ate her toast.

"So it is to me," said Anna.

"I have met many people in my life, and have often wondered at the dearth of nice ones—how few there are that one likes to be with and wishes to see again and again. Axel is one of the few, decidedly."

"So he is," agreed Anna.

"There is goodness written on every line of his face."

"Oh, he has the kindest face. And so strong. I feel that if anything happened here, anything dreadful, that he would make it right again at once. He would mend us if we got smashed, and build us up again if we got burned, and protect us, this houseful of lone women, if ever anybody tried to run away with us." And Anna nodded reassuringly at the princess, and took another piece of toast "That is how I feel about him," she said. "So agreeably certain, not only of his willingness to help, but of his power to do it." Talking about Axel she quite forgot the apparition of the baroness that she had just seen. He was so kind, so good, so strong. How much she admired strength of purpose, independence, the character that was determined to find its happiness in doing its best.

"If I had a daughter," said the princess, filling Anna's cup, "she should marry Axel Lohm."

"If I had a daughter," said Anna, "she should marry him, so yours couldn't. I wouldn't even ask her if she liked it. I'd be so sure that it was a good thing for her that I'd just say: 'My dear, I have chosen my son-in-law. Get your hat, and come to church and marry him.' And there'd be an end of that."

The princess felt that it was an unprofitable employment, trying to help on Axel's cause. She could not but see what he thought of Anna; and after the touching manner of widows, was convinced of the superiority of marriage, as a means of real happiness for a woman, over any and every other form of occupation. Yet whenever she talked of him she was met by the same hearty agreement and frank enthusiasm, the very words being taken out of her mouth and her own praises of him doubled and trebled. It was a promising friendship, but it was a singularly unpromising prelude to love.

"Please make some fresh coffee," begged Anna; "the others will be coming down soon, and must not have cold stuff." Her voice grew tender at the mere mention of "the others." For the princess and Axel, both of whom she liked so much, it never took on those tender tones, as the princess had already noted. There was nothing in either of them to appeal to that side of her nature, the tender, mother side, which is in all good women and most bad ones. They were her friends, staunch friends, she felt, and of course she liked and respected them; but they were sturdy, capable people, firmly planted on their own feet, able to battle successfully with life—as different as possible from these helpless ones who needed her, whom she had saved, to whom she was everything, between whom and want and sorrow she was fixed as a shield.

Two of the helpless ones came in at that moment, with frosty, early-morning faces. Anna put the vision she had seen at the kitchen door from her mind, and went to meet them with happy smiles and greetings. Frau von Treumann did her best to respond warmly, but it was very early to be enthusiastic, and at that hour of the day she was accustomed to being a little cross. Besides, she had had no coffee yet, and her hostess evidently had, and that made a great difference to one's sentiments. The baroness looked pinched and bloodless; she was as frigid as ever to Anna, said nothing about having seen her before, and seemed to want to be left alone. So that the mutual gazing into each other's eyes did not, after all, take place.

The princess waited to see that they had all they wanted, and then went out rattling her keys; and after an interval, during which Anna chattered cheerful and ungrammatical German, and the window was shut, and warming food eaten, Frau von Treumann became amiable and began to talk.

She drew from her pocket a letter and a photograph. "This is my son," she said. "I brought it down to show you. And I have had a long letter from him already. He never neglects his mother. Truly a good son is a source of joy."

"I suppose so," said Anna.

The baroness turned her eyes slowly round and fixed them on the photograph. "Aha," she thought, "the son again. Last night the son, this morning the son—always the son. The excellent Treumann loses no time."

"He is good-looking, my Karlchen, is he not?"

"Yes," said Anna. "It is a becoming uniform."

"Oh—becoming! He looks adorable in it. Especially on his horse. I would not let him be anything but a hussar because of the charming uniform. And he suits it exactly—such a lightly built, graceful figure. He never stumbles over people's feet. Herr von Lohm nearly crushed my poor foot last night. It was difficult not to scream. I never did admire those long men made by the meter, who seem as though they would go on for ever if there were no ceilings."

"He is rather long," agreed Anna, smiling.

"Heartwhole," thought Frau von Treumann. "Tell me, dear Miss Estcourt——" she said, laying her hand on Anna's.

"Oh, don't call me Miss Estcourt."

"But what, then?"

"Oh, you must call me Anna. We are to be like sisters here—and you, too, please, call me Anna," she said, turning to the baroness.

"You are very good," said the baroness.

"Well, my little sister," said Frau von Treumann, smiling, "my baby sister——"

"Baby sister!" thought the baroness. "Excellent Treumann."

"—you know an old woman of my age could not really have a sister of yours."

"Yes, she could—not a whole sister, perhaps, but a half one."

"Well, as you please. The idea is sweet to me. I was going to ask you—but Karlchen's letter is too touching, really—such thoughts in it—such high ideals——" And she turned over the sheets, of which there were three, and began to blow her nose.

"He has written you a very long letter," said Anna pleasantly; the extent to which the nose blowing was being carried made her uneasy. Was there to be crying?

"You have a cold, dear Frau von Treumann?" inquired the baroness with solicitude.

"Ach nein—doch nein," murmured Frau von Treumann, turning the sheets over, and blowing her nose harder than ever.

"It will come off," thought Letty, who had slipped in unnoticed, and was eating bread and butter alone at the further end of the table.

"Poor thing," thought Anna, "she adores that Karlchen."

There was a pause, during which the nose continued to be blown.

"His letter is beautiful, but sad—very sad," said Frau von Treumann, shaking her head despondingly. "Poor boy—poor dear boy—he misses his mother, of course. I knew he would, but I did not dream it would be as bad as this. Oh, my dear Miss Estcourt—well, Anna then"—smiling faintly—"I could never describe to you the wrench it was, the terrible, terrible wrench, leaving him who for five years—I am a widow five years—has been my all."

"It must have been dreadful," murmured Anna sympathetically.

The baroness sat straight and motionless, staring fixedly at Frau von Treumann.

"'When shall I see you again, my dearest mamma?' were his last words. And I could give him no hope—no answer." The handkerchief went up to her eyes.

"What is she gassing about?" wondered Letty.

"I can see him now, fading away on the platform as my train bore me off to an unknown life. An only son—the only son of a widow—is everything, everything to his mother."

"He must be," said Anna.

There was another silence. Then Frau von Treumann wiped her eyes and took up the letter again. "Now he writes that though I have only been away two days from Rislar, the town he is stationed at, it seems already like years. Poor boy! He is quite desperate—listen to this—poor boy——" And she smiled a little, and read aloud, "'I must see you, liebste, beste Mama, from time to time. I had no idea the separation would be like this, or I could never have let you go. Pray beg Miss Estcourt——'"

"Aha," thought the baroness.

"'—to allow me to visit my mother occasionally. There must be an inn in the village. If not, I could stay at Stralsund, and would in no way intrude on her. But I must see my dearest mother, the being I have watched over and cared for ever since my father's death.' Poor, dear, foolish boy—he is desperate——" And she folded up the letter, shook her head, smiled, and suddenly buried her face in her handkerchief.

"Excellent Treumann," thought the unblinking baroness.

Anna sat in some perplexity. Sons had not entered into her calculations. In the correspondence, she remembered, the son had been lightly passed over as an officer living on his pay and without a superfluous penny for the support of his parent. Not a word had been said of any unusual affection existing between them. Now it appeared that the mother and son were all in all to each other. If so, of course the separation was dreadful. A mother's love was a sentiment that inspired Anna with profound respect. Before its unknown depths and heights she stood in awe and silence. How could she, a spinster, even faintly comprehend that sacred feeling? It was a mysterious and beautiful emotion that she could only reverence from afar. Clearly she must not come between parent and child; but yet—yet she wished she had had more time to think it over.

She looked rather helplessly at Frau von Treumann, and gave her hand a little squeeze. The hand did not return the squeeze, and the face remained buried in the handkerchief. Well, it would be absurd to want to cut off the son entirely from his mother. If he came occasionally to see her it could not matter much. She gave the hand a firmer squeeze, and said with an effort that she did her best to conceal, "But he must come then, when he can. It is rather a long way—didn't you say you had to stay a night in Berlin?"

"Oh, my dear Miss Estcourt—my dear Anna!" cried Frau von Treumann, snatching the handkerchief from her face and seizing Anna's hand in both hers, "what a weight from my heart—what a heavy, heavy weight! All night I was thinking how shall I bear this? I may write to him, then, and tell him what you say? A long journey? You are afraid it will tire him? Oh, it will be nothing, nothing at all to Karlchen if only he can see his mother. How can I thank you! You will say my gratitude is excessive for such a little thing, and truly only a mother could understand it——"

In short, Karlchen's appearance at Kleinwalde was now only a matter of days.

"Unverschaemt," was the baroness's mental comment.



CHAPTER XIX

Anna put on her hat and went out to think it over. Fraeulein Kuhraeuber was apparently still asleep. Letty, accompanied by Miss Leech, had to go to Lohm parsonage for her first lesson with Herr Klutz, who had undertaken to teach her German. Frau von Treumann said she must write at once to Karlchen, and shut herself up to do it. The baroness was vague as to her intentions, and disappeared. So Anna started off by herself, crossed the road, and walked quickly away into the forest. "If it makes her so happy, then I am glad," she said to herself. "She is here to be happy; and if she wants Karlchen so badly, why then she must have him from time to time. I wonder why I don't like Karlchen."

She walked quickly, with her eyes on the ground. The mood in which she sang magnificats had left her, nor did she look to see what the April morning was doing. Frau von Treumann had not been under her roof twenty-four hours, and already her son had been added—if only occasionally, still undoubtedly added—to the party. Suppose the baroness and Fraeulein Kuhraeuber should severally disclose an inability to live without being visited by some cherished relative? Suppose the other nine, the still Unchosen, should each turn out to have a relative waiting tragically in the background for permission to make repeated calls? And suppose these relatives should all be male?

These were grave questions; so grave that she was quite at a loss how to answer them. And then she felt that somebody was looking at her; and raising her eyes, she saw Axel on the mossy path quite close to her.

"So deep in thought?" he asked, smiling at her start.

Anna wondered how it was that he so often went through the forest. Was it a short cut from Lohm to anywhere? She had met him three or four times lately, in quite out of the way parts. He seemed to ride through it and walk through it at all hours of the day.

"How is your potato-planting getting on?" she asked involuntarily. She knew what a rush there was just then putting the potatoes in, for she did not drive every day about her fields in a cart without springs with Dellwig for nothing. Axel must have potatoes to plant too; why didn't he stay at home, then, and do it?

"What a truly proper question for a country lady to ask," he said, looking amused. "You waste no time in conventional good mornings or asking how I do, but begin at once with potatoes. Well, I do not believe that you are really interested in mine, so I shall tell you nothing about them. You only want to remind me that I ought to be seeing them planted instead of walking about your woods."

Anna smiled. "I believe I did mean something like that," she said.

"Well, I am not so aimless as you suppose," he returned, walking by her side. "I have been looking at that place."

"What place?"

"Where Dellwig wants to build the brick-kiln."

"Oh! What do you think of it?"

"What I knew I would think of it. It is a fool's plan. The clay is the most wretched stuff. It has puzzled me, seeing how very poor it is, that he should be so eager to have the thing. I should have credited him with more sense."

"He is quite absurdly keen on it. Last night I thought he would never stop persuading."

"But you did not give in?"

"Not an inch. I said I would ask you to look at it, and then he was simply rude. I do believe he will have to go. I don't really think we shall ever get on together. Certainly, as you say the clay is bad, I shall refuse to build a brick-kiln."

Axel smiled at her energy. In the morning she was always determined about Dellwig. "You are very brave to-day," he said. "Last night you seemed afraid of him."

"He comes when I am tired. I am not going to see him in the evening any more. It is too dreadful as a finish to a happy day."

"It was a happy day, then, yesterday?" he asked quickly.

"Yes—that is, it ought to have been, and probably would have been if—if I hadn't been tired."

"But the others—the new arrivals—they must have been happy?"

"Yes—oh yes—" said Anna, hesitating, "I think so. Fraeulein Kuhraeuber was, I am sure, at intervals. I think the other two would have been if they hadn't had a journey."

"By the way, do you remember what I said yesterday about the Elmreichs?"

"Yes, I do. You said horrid things." Her voice changed.

"About a Baron Elmreich. But he had a sister who made a hash of her life. I saw her once or twice in Berlin. She was dancing at the Wintergarten, and under her own name."

"Poor thing. But it doesn't interest me."

"Don't get angry yet."

"But it doesn't interest me. And why shouldn't she dance? I knew several people who ended by dancing at London Wintergartens."

"You admit, then, that it is an end?"

"It is hardly a beginning," conceded Anna.

"She was so amazingly like your baroness would be if she painted and wore a wig——"

"That you are convinced they must be sisters. Thank you. Now what do you suppose is the good of telling me that?" And she stood still and faced him, her eyes flashing.

Do what he would, Axel could not help smiling at her wrath. It was the wrath of a mother whose child has been hurt by someone on purpose, "I wish," he said, "that you would not be so angry when I tell you things that might be important for you to know. If your baroness is really the sister of the dancing baroness——"

"But she is not. She told me last night that she has no brothers and sisters. And she wrote it in the letters before she came. Do you think it is a praiseworthy occupation for a man, doing his best to find out disgraceful things about a very poor and very helpless woman?"

"No, I do not," said Axel decidedly. "Under any other circumstances I would leave the poor lady to take her chance. But do consider," he said, following her, for she had begun to walk on quickly again, "do consider your unusual position. You are so young to be living away from your friends, and so young and inexperienced to be at the head of a home for homeless women—you ought to be quite extraordinarily particular about the antecedents of the people you take in. It would be most unpleasant if it got about that they were not respectable."

"But they are respectable," said Anna, looking straight before her.

"A sister who dances at the Wintergarten——"

"Did I not tell you that she has no sister?"

Axel shrugged his shoulders. "The resemblance is so striking that they might be twins," he said.

"Then you think she says what is not true?"

"How can I tell?"

Anna stopped again and faced him. "Well, suppose it were true—suppose it is her sister, and she has tried to hide it—do you know how I should feel about it?"

"Properly scandalised, I hope."

"I should love her all the more. Oh, I should love her twice as much! Why, think of the misery and the shame—poor, poor little woman—trying to hide it all, bearing it all by herself—she must have loved her sister, she must have loved her brother. It isn't true, of course, but supposing it were, could you tell me any reason why I should turn my back on her?"

She stood looking at him, her eyes full of angry tears.

He did not answer. If that was the way she felt, what could he do?

"I never understood," she went on passionately, "why the innocent should be punished. Do you suppose a woman would like her brother to cheat and then shoot himself? Or like her sister to go and dance? But if they do do these things, besides her own grief and horror, she is to be shunned by everybody as though she were infectious. Is that fair? Is that right? Is it in the least Christian?"

"No, of course it is not. It is very hard and very ugly, but it is quite natural. An old woman in a strong position might take such a person up, perhaps, and comfort her and love her as you propose to do, but a young girl ought not to do anything of the sort."

Anna turned away with a quick movement of impatience and walked on. "If you argue on the young girl basis," she said, "we shall never be able to talk about a single thing. When will you leave off about my young girlishness? In five years I shall be thirty—will you go on till I have reached that blessed age?"

"I have no right to go on to you about anything," said Axel.

"Precisely," said Anna.

"But please remember that I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to your uncle, and make allowances for me if I am over-zealous in my anxiety to shield his niece from possible unpleasantness."

"Then don't keep telling me I am too young to do good. It is ludicrous, considering my age, besides being dreadful. You will say that, I believe, till I am thirty or forty, and then when you can't decently say it any more, and I still want to do things, you'll say I'm old enough to know better."

Axel laughed. Anna's dimples appeared for an instant, but vanished again.

"Now," she said, "I am not going to talk about poor little Else any more. Let her distant relations dance till they are tired—it concerns nobody here at all."

"Little Else?"

"The baroness. Of course we shall call each other by our Christian names. We are sisters."

"I see."

"You don't see at all," she said, with a swift sideward glance at him.

"My dear Miss Estcourt——"

"If my plan succeeds it will certainly not be because I have been encouraged."

"I think," he said with sudden warmth, "that the plan is beautiful, and could only have been made by a beautiful nature."

"Oh?" ejaculated Anna, surprised. A flush of gratification came into her face. The heartiness of the tone surprised her even more than the words. She stood still to look at him. "It is a pity," she said softly, "that nearly always when we are together we get angry, for you can be so kind when you choose. Say nice things to me. Let us be happy. I love being happy."

She held out her hand, smiling. He took it and gave it a hearty, matter of fact shake, and dropped it. It was very awkward, but he was struggling with an overpowering desire to take her in his arms and kiss her, and not let her go again till she had said she would marry him. It was exceedingly awkward, for he knew quite well that if he did so it would be the end of all things.

He turned rather white, and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. "Yes, the plan is beautiful," he said cheerfully, "but very unpractical. And the nature that made it is, I am sure, beautiful, but of course quite as unpractical as the plan." And he smiled down at her, a broad, genial smile.

"I know I don't set about things the right way," she said. "If only you wouldn't worry about the pasts of my poor friends and what their relations may have done in pre-historic times, you could help me so much."

To his relief she began to walk on again. "Princess Ludwig is a sensible and experienced woman," he said, "and can help you in many ways that I cannot."

"But she only looks at the praktische side of a question, and that is really only one side. I am too unpractical, I know, but she isn't unpractical enough. But I don't want to talk about her. What I wanted to say was, that once these poor ladies have been chosen and are here, the time for making inquiries is over, isn't it? As far as I am concerned, anyhow, it is. I shall never forsake them, never, never. So please don't try to tell me things about them—it doesn't change my feelings towards them, and only makes me angry with you. Which is a pity. I want to live at peace with my neighbour."

"Well?" he said, as she paused. "That, I take it, is a prelude to something else."

"Yes, it is. It's a prelude to Karlchen."

"To Karlchen?"

She looked at him, and laughed rather nervously. "I am afraid," she said, "that Karlchen is coming to stay with me."

"And who, pray, is Karlchen?"

"The only son of his mother, and she is a widow."

He came to a standstill again. "What," he said, "Frau von Treumann has asked you to invite her son to Kleinwalde?"

"She didn't actually ask, but she got a sad letter from him, and seemed to feel the separation so much, and cried about it, and so—and so I did."

Axel was silent.

"I don't yearn to see Karlchen," said Anna in rather a small voice. She could not help feeling that the invitation had been wrung from her.

Axel bored a hole in the moss with his stick, and did not answer.

"But naturally his poor mother clings to him, and he to her."

Axel was intent on his hole and did not answer.

"They are all the world to each other."

Axel filled up his hole again, and pressed the moss carefully over it with his foot. Then he said, "I never yet heard of two Treumanns being all the world to each other."

"You appear to have a down on the Treumanns."

"Not in the least. I do not think they interest me enough. It is an East Prussian Junker family that has spread beyond its natural limits, and one meets them everywhere, and knows their characteristics. What is this young man? I do not remember having heard of him."

"He is an officer at Rislar."

"At Rislar? Those are the red hussars. Do you wish me to make inquiries about him?"

"Oh, no. It's no use. His mother can't be happy without him, so he must come."

"Then may I ask why, if I am not to help you in the matter, we are talking about him at all?"

"I wanted to ask you whether—whether you think he will come often."

"I should think," said Axel positively, "that he will come very often indeed."

"Oh!" said Anna.

They walked on in silence.

"Have you considered," he said presently, "what you would do if your other—sisters want their relations asked down to stay with them? Christmas, for instance, is a time of general rejoicing, when the coldest hearts grow warm. Relations who have quarrelled all the year, seek each other out at Christmas and talk tearfully of ties of blood. And birthdays—will your twelve sisters be content to spend their twelve birthdays remote from all members of their family? Birthdays here are important days. There will be one a month now for you to celebrate at Kleinwalde."

"I have not got farther than considering Karlchen," said Anna with some impatience.

"A male Kuhraeuber," said Axel musingly, swinging his stick and gazing up at the fleecy clouds floating over the pine tops, "a male Kuhraeuber would be quite unlike anything you have yet seen."

"There are no male Kuhraeubers," said Anna. "At least," she added, correcting herself, "Fraeulein Kuhraeuber said so. She said she had no relations at all, but perhaps—perhaps she has forgotten some, and will remember them by and by. Oh, I wish they would tell me exactly how they stand, and not try to hide anything! I thought we had left nothing unexplained in the letters, but now Karlchen—it seems——" She stopped and bit her lip. She was actually on the verge of criticising, to Axel, the behaviour of her sisters. "Look," she said, catching sight of red roofs through the thinning trees, "isn't that Lohm? I have seen you home without knowing it."

She held out her hand. "It isn't much good talking, is it?" she said, moved by a sudden impulse, and looking up at him with a slightly wistful smile. "How we talk and talk and never get any nearer anything or each other. Such an amount of explaining oneself, and all no use. I don't mean you and me especially—it is always so, with everyone and everywhere. It is very weird. Good-bye."

But he held her hand and would not let her go. "No," he said, in a voice she did not know, "wait one moment. Why will you not let me really help you? Do you think you will ever achieve anything by shutting your eyes to what is true? Is it not better to face it, and then to do one's best—after that, knowing the truth? Why are you angry whenever I try to tell you the truth, or what I believe to be the truth about these ladies? You are certain to find it out for yourself one day. You force me to look on and see you being disappointed, and grieved, and perhaps cheated—anyhow your confidence abused—and you reduce our talks together to a sort of sparring match unworthy, quite unworthy of either of us——" He broke off abruptly and released her hand. The passion in his voice was unmistakable, and she was listening with astonished eyes. "I am lecturing you," he said in his usual even tones, "Forgive me for thinking that you are setting about your plan in a way that can never be successful. As you say, we talk and talk, and the more we talk the less do we understand each other. It is a foolish world, and a pre-eminently lonely one."

He lifted his hat and turned away. Anna opened her lips to say something, but he was gone.

She went home and meditated on volcanoes.



CHAPTER XX

The May that year in Northern Germany was the May of a poet's dream. The days were like a chain of pearls, increasing in beauty and preciousness as the chain lengthened. The lilacs flowered a fortnight earlier than in other years. The winds, so restless usually on those flat shores, seemed all asleep, and hardly stirred. About the middle of the month the moon was at the full, and the forest became enchanted ground. It was a time for love and lovers, for vows and kisses, for all pretty, happy, hopeful things. Only those farmers who were too old to love and vow, looked at their rye fields and grumbled because there was no rain.

Karlchen, arriving on the first Saturday of that blessed month, felt all disposed to love, if the Englaenderin should turn out to be in the least degree lovable. He did not ask much of a young woman with a fortune, but he inwardly prayed that she might not be quite so ugly as wives with money sometimes are. He was a man used to having what he wanted, and had spent his own and his mother's money in getting it. There was a little bald patch on the top of his head, and there were many debts on his mind, and he was nearing the critical point in an officer's career, the turning of which is reserved exclusively for the efficient; and so he had three excellent reasons for desiring to marry. He had desired it, indeed, for some time, had attempted it often, and had not achieved it. The fathers of wealthy German girls knew the state of his finances with an exactitude that was unworthy; and they knew, besides, every one of his little weaknesses. As a result, they gave their daughters to other suitors. But here was a girl without a father, who knew nothing about him at all. There was, of course, some story in the background to account for her living in this way; but that was precisely what would make her glad of a husband who would relieve her of the necessity of building up the weaker parts of her reputation on a foundation of what Karlchen, when he saw the inmates of the house, rudely stigmatised as alte Schachteln. Reputations, he reflected, staring at Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, may be too dearly bought. Naturally she would prefer an easy-going husband, who would let her see life with all its fun, to this dreary and aimless existence.

The Treumanns, he thought, were in luck. What a burden his mother had been on him for the last five years! Miss Estcourt had relieved him of it. Now there were his debts, and she would relieve him of those; and the little entanglement she must have had at home would not matter in Germany, where no one knew anything about her, except that she was the highly respectable Joachim's niece. Anyway, he was perfectly willing to let bygones be bygones. He left his bag at the inn at Kleinwalde, an impossible place as he noted with pleasure, sent away his Droschke, and walked round to the house; but he did not see Anna. She kept out of the way till the evening, and he had ample time to be happy with his mother. When he did see her, he fell in love with her at once. He had quite a simple nature, composed wholly of instincts, and fell in love with an ease acquired by long practice. Anna's face and figure were far prettier than he had dared to hope. She was a beauty, he told himself with much satisfaction. Truly the Treumanns were in luck. He entirely forgot the role he was to play of loving son, and devoted himself, with his habitual artlessness, to her. Indeed, if he had not forgotten it, he and his mother were so little accustomed to displays of affection that they would have been but clumsy actors. There is a great difference between affectionate letters written quietly in one's room, and affectionate conversation that has to sound as though it welled up from one's heart. Nothing of the kind ever welled up from Karlchen's heart; and Anna noticed at once that there were no signs of unusual attachment between mother and son. Karlchen was not even commonly polite to his mother, nor did she seem to expect him to be. When she dropped her scissors, she had to pick them up for herself. When she lost her thimble, she hunted for it alone. When she wanted a footstool, she got up and fetched one from under his very nose. When she came into the room and looked about for a chair, it was Letty who offered her hers. Karlchen sat comfortably with his legs crossed, playing with the paper-knife he had taken out of the book Anna had been reading, and making himself pleasant. He had his mother's large black eyes, and very long thick black eyelashes of which he was proud, conscious that they rested becomingly on his cheeks when he looked down at the paper-knife. Letty was greatly struck by them, and inquired of Miss Leech in a whisper whether she had ever seen their like.

"Mr. Jessup had silken eyelashes too," replied Miss Leech dreamily.

"These aren't silk—they're cotton eyelashes," said Letty scornfully.

"My dear Letty," murmured Miss Leech.

Anna was at a disadvantage because of her imperfect German. She could not repress Karlchen when he was unduly kind as she would have done in English, and with his mother presiding, as it were, at their opening friendship, she did not like to begin by looking lofty. Luckily the princess was unusually chatty that evening. She sat next to Karlchen, and continually joined in the talk. She was cheerful amiability itself, and insisted upon being told all about those sons of her acquaintances who were in his regiment. When he half turned his back on her and dropped his voice to a rapid undertone, thereby making himself completely incomprehensible to Anna, the princess pleasantly advised him to speak very slowly and distinctly, for unless he did Miss Estcourt would certainly not understand. In a word, she took him under her wing whether he would or no, and persisted in her friendliness in spite of his mother's increasingly desperate efforts to draw her into conversation.

"Why do we not go out, dear Anna?" cried Frau von Treumann at last, unable to endure Princess Ludwig's behaviour any longer. "Look what a fine evening it is—and quite warm." And she who till then had gone about shutting windows, and had been unable to bear the least breath of air, herself opened the glass doors leading into the garden and went out.

But although they all followed her, nothing was gained by it. She could have stamped her foot with rage at the princess's conduct. Here was everything needful for the beginning of a successful courtship—starlight, a murmuring sea, warm air, fragrant bushes, a girl who looked like Love itself in the dusk in her pale beauty, a young man desiring nothing better than to be allowed to love her, and a mother only waiting to bless. But here too, unfortunately, was the princess.

She was quite appallingly sociable—"The spite of the woman!" thought Frau von Treumann, for what could it matter to her?—and remained fixed at Anna's side as they paced slowly up and down the grass, monopolising Karlchen's attention with her absurd questions about his brother officers. Anna walked between them, thinking of other things, holding up her trailing white dress with one hand, and with the other the edges of her blue cloak together at her neck. She was half a head taller than Karlchen, and so was his mother, who walked on his other side. Karlchen, becoming more and more enamoured the longer he walked, looked up at her through his eyelashes and told himself that the Treumanns were certainly in luck, for he had stumbled on a goddess.

"The grass is damp," cried Frau von Treumann, interrupting the endless questions. "My dear princess—your rheumatism—and I who so easily get colds. Come, we will go off the grass—we are not young enough to risk wet feet."

"I do not feel it," said the princess, "I have thick shoes. But you, dear Frau von Treumann, do not stay if you have fears."

"It is damp," said Anna, turning up the sole of her shoe. "Shall we go on to the path?"

On the path it was obvious that they must walk in couples. Arrived at its edge, the princess stopped and looked round with an urbane smile. "My dear child," she said to Anna, taking her arm, "we have been keeping Herr von Treumann from his mother regardless of his feelings. I beg you to pardon my thoughtlessness," she added, turning to him, "but my interest in hearing of my old friends' sons has made me quite forget that you took this long journey to be with your dear mother. We will not interrupt you further. Come, my dear, I wanted to ask you——" And she led Anna away, dropping her voice to a confidential questioning concerning the engaging of a new cook.

There was nothing to be done. The only crumb of comfort Karlchen obtained—but it was a big one—was a reluctantly given invitation, on his mother's vividly describing at the hour of parting the place where he was to spend the night, to remove his luggage from the inn to Anna's house, and to sleep there.

"You are too good, meine Gnaedigste," he said, consoled by this for the tete-a-tete he had just had with his mother; "but if it in any way inconveniences you—we soldiers are used to roughing it——"

"But not like that, not like that, lieber Junge," interrupted his mother anxiously. "It is not fit for a dog, that inn, and I heard this very evening from the housemaid that one of the children there has the measles."

That quite settled it. Anna could not expose Karlchen to measles. Why did he not stay, as he had written he would, at Stralsund? As he was here, however, she could not let him fall a prey to measles, and she asked the princess to order a room to be got ready.

It is a proof of her solemnity on that first evening with Karlchen that when his mother, praising her beauty, mentioned her dimples as specially bewitching, he should have said, surprised, "What dimples?"

It is a proof, too, of the duplicity of mothers, that the very next day in church the princess, sitting opposite the innkeeper's rosy family, and counting its members between the verses of the hymn, should have found that not one was missing.

Karlchen left on Sunday evening after a not very successful visit. He had been to church, believing that it was expected of him, and had found to his disgust that Anna had gone for a walk. So there he sat, between his mother and Princess Ludwig, and extracted what consolation he could from a studied neglect of the outer forms of worship and an elaborate slumber during the sermon.

The morning, then, was wasted. At luncheon Anna was unapproachable. Karlchen was invited to sit next to his mother, and Anna was protected by Letty on the one hand and Fraeulein Kuhraeuber on the other, and she talked the whole time to Fraeulein Kuhraeuber.

"Who is Fraeulein Kuhraeuber?" he inquired irritably of his mother, when they found themselves alone together again in the afternoon.

"Well, you can see who she is, I should think," replied his mother equally irritably. "She is just Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, and nothing more."

"Anna talks to her more than to anyone," he said; she was already "Anna" to him, tout court.

"Yes. It is disgusting."

"It is very disgusting. It is not right that Treumanns should be forced to associate on equal terms with such a person."

"It is scandalous. But you will change all that."

Karlchen twisted up the ends of his moustache and looked down his nose. He often looked down his nose because of his eyelashes. He began to hum a tune, and felt happy again. Axel Lohm was right when he doubted whether there had ever been a permanently crushed Treumann.

"She has a strange assortment of alte Schachteln here," he said, after a pause during which his thoughts were rosy. "That Elmreich, now. What relation does she say she is to Arthur Elmreich?"

"The man who shot himself? Oh, she is no relation at all. At most a distant cousin."

"Na, na," was Karlchen's reply; a reply whose English equivalent would be a profoundly sceptical wink.

His mother looked at him, waiting for more.

"What do you really think——?" she began, and then stopped.

He stood before the glass readjusting his moustache into the regulation truculent upward twist. "Think?" he said. "You know Arthur's sister Lolli was engaged at the Wintergarten this winter. She was not much of a success. Too old. But she was down on the bills as Baroness Elmreich, and people went to see her because of that, and because of her brother."

"Oh—terrible," murmured Frau von Treumann.

"Well, I know her; and I shall ask her next time I see her if she has a sister."

"But this one has no relations living at all," said his mother, horrified at the bare suggestion that Lolli was the sister of a person with whom she ate her dinner every day.

"Na, na," said Karlchen.

"But my dear Karlchen, it is so unlikely—the baroness is the veriest pattern of primness. She has such very strict views about all such things—quite absurdly strict. She even had doubts, she told me, when first she came here, as to whether Anna were a fit companion for her."

Karlchen stopped twisting his moustache, and stared at his mother. Then he threw back his head and shrieked with laughter. He laughed so much that for some moments he could not speak. His mother's face, as she watched him without a smile, made him laugh still more. "Liebste Mama," he said at last, wiping his eyes, "it may of course not be true. It is just possible that it is not. But I feel sure it is true, for this Elmreich and the little Lolli are as alike as two peas. Anna not a fit companion for Lolli's sister! Ach Gott, ach Gott!" And he shrieked again.

"If it is true," said Frau von Treumann, drawing herself up to her full height, "it is my duty to tell Anna. I cannot stay under the same roof with such a woman. She must go."

"Take care," said her son, illumined by an unaccustomed ray of sapience, "take care, Mutti. It is not certain that Anna would send her away."

"What! if she knew about this—this Lolli, as you call her?"

Karlchen shook his head. "It is better not to begin with ultimatums," he said sagely. "If you say you cannot stay under the same roof with the Elmreich, and she does not after that go, why then you must. And that," he added, looking alarmed, "would be disastrous. No, no, leave it alone. In any case leave it alone till I have seen Lolli. I shall come down soon again, you may be sure. I wish we could get rid of the Penheim. Now that really would be a good thing. Think it over."

But Frau von Treumann felt that by no amount of thinking it over would they ever get rid of the Penheim.

"You do not like my Karlchen?" she said plaintively to Anna that evening, coming out into the dusky garden where she stood looking at the stars. Karlchen was well on his way to Berlin by that time.

"I am sure I should like him very much if I knew him," replied Anna, putting all the heartiness she could muster into her voice.

Frau von Treumann shook her head sadly. "But now? I see you do not like him now. You hardly spoke to him. He was hurt. A mother"—"Oh," thought Anna, "I am tired of mothers,"—"a mother always knows."

Her handkerchief came out. She had put one hand through Anna's arm, and with the other began to wipe her eyes. Anna watched her in silence.

"What? What? Tears? Do I see tears? Are we then missing our son so much?" exclaimed a cheery voice behind them. And there was the princess again.

"Serpent," thought Frau von Treumann; but what is the use of thinking serpent? She had to submit to being consoled all the same, while Anna walked away.



CHAPTER XXI

Anna seemed always to be walking away during the days that separated Karlchen's first visit from his second. Frau von Treumann noticed it with some uneasiness, and hoped that it was only her fancy. The girl had shown herself possessed of such an abnormally large and warm heart at first, had been so eager in her offers of affection, so enthusiastic, so sympathetic, so—well, absurd; was it possible that there was no warmth and no affection left over from those vast stores for such a good-looking, agreeable man as Karlchen? But she set such thoughts aside as ridiculous. Her son's simple doctrine from his fourteenth year on had been that all girls like all men. It had often been laid down by him in their talks together, and her own experience of girls had sufficiently proved its soundness. "The Penheim must have poisoned her mind against him," she decided at last, unable otherwise to explain the apathy with which Anna received any news of Karlchen. Was there ever such sheer spite? For what could it matter to a woman with no son of her own, who married Anna? Somebody would marry her, for certain, and the Penheim would lose her place; then why should it not be Karlchen?

The princess, however, most innocent of excellent women, had never spoken privately to Anna of Karlchen except once, when she inquired whether he were to have the best sheets on his bed, or the second best sheets; and Anna had replied, "The worst."

But if Frau von Treumann was uneasy about Anna, Anna was still more uneasy about Frau von Treumann. Whenever she could, she went away into the forest and tried to think things out. She objected very much to the feeling that life seemed somehow to be thickening round her—yet, after Karlchen's visit there it was. Each day there were fewer and fewer quiet pauses in the trivial bustle of existence; clear moments, like windows through which she caught glimpses of the serene tranquillity with which the real day, nature's day, the day she ought to have had, was passing. Frau von Treumann followed her about and talked to her of Karlchen. Fraeulein Kuhraeuber followed her about, with a humble, dog-like affection, and seemed to want to tell her something, and never got further than dark utterances that perplexed her. Baroness Elmreich repulsed all her advances, carefully called her Miss Estcourt, and made acid comments on everything that was said and done. "I believe she dislikes me," thought Anna, puzzled. "I wonder why?" The baroness did; and the reason was simplicity itself. She disliked her because she was younger, prettier, richer, healthier than herself. For this she disliked her heartily; but with far greater heartiness did she dislike her because she knew she ought to be grateful to her. The baroness detested having to feel grateful—it is a detestation not confined to baronesses—and in this case the burden of the obligations she was under was so great that it was almost past endurance. And there was no escape. She had been starving when Anna took her in, and she would starve again if Anna turned her out. She owed her everything; and what more natural, then, than to dislike her? The rarest of loves is the love of a debtor for his creditor.

At night, alone in her room, Anna would wonder at the day lived through, at the unsatisfactoriness of it, and the emptiness. When were they going to begin the better life, the soul to soul life she was waiting for? How busy they had all been, and what had they done? Why, nothing. A little aimless talking, a little aimless sewing, a little aimless walking about, a few letters to write that need not have been written, a newspaper to glance into that did not really interest anybody, meals in rapid succession, night, and oblivion. That was what was on the surface. What was beneath the surface she could only guess at; for after a whole fortnight with the Chosen she was still confronted solely by surfaces. In the hot forest, drowsy and aromatic, where the white butterflies, like points of light among the shadows of the pine-trunks, fluttered up and down the unending avenues all day long, she wandered, during the afternoon hour when the Chosen napped, to the most out-of-the-way nooks she could find; and sitting on the moss where she could see some special bit of loveliness, some distant radiant meadow in the sunlight beyond the trees, some bush with its delicate green shower of budding leaves at the foot of a giant pine, some exquisite effect of blue and white between the branches so far above her head, she would ponder and ponder till she was weary.

There was no mistaking Karlchen's looks; she had not been a pretty girl for several seasons at home in vain. Karlchen meant to marry her. She, of course, did not mean to marry Karlchen, but that did not smooth any of the ruggedness out of the path she saw opening before her. She would have to endure the preliminary blandishments of the wooing, and when the wooing itself had reached the state of ripeness which would enable her to let him know plainly her own intentions, there would be a grievous number of scenes to be gone through with his mother. And then his mother would shake the Kleinwalde dust from her offended feet and go, and failure number one would be upon her. In the innermost recesses of her heart, offensive as Karlchen's wooing would certainly be, she thought that once it was over it would not have been a bad thing; for, since his visit, it was clear that Frau von Treumann was not the sort of inmate she had dreamed of for her home for the unhappy. Unhappy she had undoubtedly been, poor thing, but happy with Anna she would never be. She had forgiven the first fibs the poor lady had told her, but she could not go on forgiving fibs for ever. All those elaborate untruths, written and spoken, about Karlchen's visit, how dreadful they were. Surely, thought Anna, truthfulness was not only a lovely and a pleasant thing but it was absolutely indispensable as the basis to a real friendship. How could any soul approach another soul through a network of lies? And then more painful still—she confessed with shame that it was more painful to her even than the lies—Frau von Treumann evidently took her for a fool. Not merely for a person wanting in intelligence, or slow-witted, but for a downright fool. She must think so, or she would have taken more pains, at least some pains, to make her schemes a little less transparent. Anna hated herself for feeling mortified by this; but mortified she certainly was. Even a philosopher does not like to be honestly mistaken during an entire fortnight for a fool. Though he may smile, he will almost surely wince. Not being a philosopher, Anna winced and did not smile.

"I think," she said to Manske, when he came in one morning with a list of selected applications, "I think we will wait a little before choosing the other nine."

"The gracious one is not weary of well-doing?" he asked quickly.

"Oh no, not at all; I like well-doing," Anna said rather lamely, "but it is not quite—not quite as simple as it looks."

"I have found nine most deserving cases," he urged, "and later there may not be——"

"No, no," interrupted Anna, "we will wait. In the autumn, perhaps—not now. First I must make the ones who are here happy. You know," she said, smiling, "they came here to be made happy."

"Yes, truly I know it. And happy indeed must they be in this home, surrounded by all that makes life fair and desirable."

"One would think so," said Anna, musing. "It is pretty here, isn't it—it should be easy to be happy here,—yet I am not sure that they are."

"Not sure——?" Manske looked at her, startled.

"What do people—most people, ordinary people, need, to make them happy?" she asked wistfully. She was speaking to herself more than to him, and did not expect any very illuminating answer.

"The fear of the Lord," he replied promptly; which put an end to the conversation.

But besides her perplexities about the Chosen, Anna had other worries. Dellwig had received the refusal to let him build the brick-kiln with such insolence, and had, in his anger, said such extraordinary things about Axel Lohm, that Anna had blazed out too, and had told him he must go. It had been an unpleasant scene, and she had come out from it white and trembling. She had intended to ask Axel to do the dismissing for her if she should ever definitely decide to send him away; but she had been overwhelmed by a sudden passion of wrath at the man's intolerable insinuations—only half understood, but sounding for that reason worse than they were—and had done it herself. Since then she had not seen him. By the agreement her uncle had made with him, he was entitled to six months' notice, and would not leave until the winter, and she knew she could not continue to refuse to see him; but how she dreaded the next interview! And how uneasy she felt at the thought that the management of her estate was entirely in the hands of a man who must now be her enemy. Axel was equally anxious, when he heard what she had done. It had to be done, of course; but he did not like Dellwig's looks when he met him. He asked Anna to allow him to ride round her place as often as he could, and she was grateful to him, for she knew that not only her own existence, but the existence of her poor friends, depended on the right cultivation of Kleinwalde. And she was so helpless. What creature on earth could be more helpless than an English girl in her position? She left off reading Maeterlinck, borrowed books on farming from Axel, and eagerly studied them, learning by heart before breakfast long pages concerning the peculiarities of her two chief products, potatoes and pigs.

"He cannot do much harm," Axel assured her; "the potatoes, I see, are all in, and what can he do to the pigs? His own vanity would prevent his leaving the place in a bad state. I have heard of a good man—shall I have him down and interview him for you?"

"How kind you are," said Anna gratefully; indeed, he seemed to her to be a tower of strength.

"Anyone would do what they could to help a forlorn young lady in the straits you are in," he said, smiling at her.

"I don't feel like a forlorn young lady with you next door to help me out of the difficulties."

"People in these lonely country places learn to be neighbourly," he replied in his most measured tones.

He had not again spoken of the Chosen since his walk with her through the forest; and though he knew that Karlchen had been and gone he did not mention his name. Nor did Anna. The longer she lived with her sisters the less did she care to talk about them, especially to Axel. As for Frau von Treumann's plans, how could she ever tell him of those?

And just then Letty, the only being who was really satisfactory, became a cause to her of fresh perplexity. Letty had been strangely content with her German lessons from Herr Klutz. Every day she and Miss Leech set out without a murmur, and came back looking placid. They brought back little offerings from the parsonage, a bunch of narcissus, the first lilac, cakes baked by Frau Manske, always something. Anna took the flowers, and ate the cakes, and sent pleased messages in return. If she had been less preoccupied by Dellwig and the eccentricities of her three new friends, she would certainly have been struck by Letty's silence about her lessons, and would have questioned her. There was no grumbling after the first day, and no abuse of Schiller and the muses. Once Anna met Klutz walking through Kleinwalde, and asked him how the studies were progressing. "Colossal," was the reply, "the progress made is colossal." And he crushed her rings into her fingers when she gave him her hand to shake, and blushed, and looked at her with eyes that he felt must burn into her soul. But Anna noticed neither his eyes nor his blush; for his eyes, whatever he might feel them to be doing, were not the kind that burn into souls, and he was a pale young man who, when he blushed, did it only in his ears. They certainly turned crimson as he crushed Anna's fingers, but she was not thinking of his ears.

"Frau Manske is too kind," she said, as the nosegays, at first intermittent, became things of daily occurrence. They grew bigger, too, every day, attaining such a girth at last that Letty could hardly carry them. "She must not plunder her garden like this."

"It is very full of flowers," said Miss Leech. "Really a wonderful display. The bunch is always ready, tied together and lying on the table when we arrive. I tried to tell her yesterday that you were afraid she was spoiling her garden, sending so much, but she did not seem to understand. She is showing me how to make those cakes you said you liked."

"I wish I had some of these in my garden," said Anna, laying her cheek against the posy of wallflowers Letty had just given her. There was nothing in her garden except grass and trees; Uncle Joachim had not been a man of flowers.

She took them up to her room, kissing them on the way, and put them in a jar on the window-sill; and it was not until two or three days later, when they began to fade, that she saw the corner of an envelope peeping out from among them. She pulled it out and opened it. It was addressed to Ihr Hochwohlgeboren Fraeulein Anna Estcourt; and inside was a sheet of notepaper with a large red heart painted on it, mangled, and pierced by an arrow; and below it the following poem in a cramped, hardly readable writing:—

The earth am I, and thou the heaven, The mass am I, and thou the leaven, No other heaven do I want but thee, Oh Anna, Anna, Anna, pity me!

AUGUST KLUTZ, Kandidat.

In an instant Letty's unnatural cheerfulness about her lessons flashed across her. What had they been doing, and where was Miss Leech, that such things could happen?

It was a very terrible, stern-browed aunt who met Letty that day on the stairs when she came home.

"Hullo, Aunt Anna, seen a ghost?" Letty inquired pleasantly; but her heart sank into her boots all the same as she followed her into her room.

"Look," said Anna, showing her the paper, "how could you do it? For of course you did it. Herr Klutz doesn't speak English."

"Doesn't he though—he gets on like anything. He sits up all night——"

"How is it that this was possible?" interrupted Anna, striking the paper with her hand.

"It's pretty, isn't it," said Letty, faintly grinning. "The last line had to be changed a little. It isn't original, you know, except the Annas. I put in those. That footman mother got cheap because he had one finger too few sent it to Hilton on her birthday last year—she liked it awfully. The last line was 'Oh Hilton, Hilton, Hilton——'"

"How came you to talk such hideous nonsense with Herr Klutz, and about me?"

"I didn't. He began. He talked about you the whole time, and started doing it the very first day Leechy cooked."

"Cooked?"

"She is always in the kitchen with Frau Manske. We brought you some of the cakes one day, and you seemed as pleased as anything."

"And instead of learning German you and he have been making up this sort of thing?"

Anna's voice and eyes frightened Letty. She shifted from one foot to the other and looked down sullenly. "What's the good of being angry?" she said, addressing the carpet; "it's only Mr. Jessup over again. Leechy wasn't angry with Mr. Jessup. She was frightfully pleased. She says it's the greatest compliment a person can pay anybody, going on about them like Herr Klutz does, and talking rot."

Anna stared at her, bewildered. "Mr. Jessup?" she repeated. "And do you mean to tell me that Miss Leech knows of this—this disgusting nonsense?" She held the mangled heart at arm's length, crushing it in her hand.

"I say, you'll spoil it. He worked at it for days. There weren't any paints red enough for the wound, and he had to go to Stralsund on purpose. He thought no end of it." And Letty, scared though she was, could not resist giggling a little.

"Do you mean to tell me that Miss Leech knows about this?" insisted Anna.

"Rather not. It's a secret. He made me promise faithfully never to tell a soul. Of course it doesn't matter talking to you, because you're one of the persons concerned. You can't be married, you know, without knowing about it, so I'm not breaking my promise talking to you——"

"Married? What unutterable rubbish have you got into your head?"

"That's what I said—or something like it. I said it was jolly rot. He said, 'What's rot?' I said 'That.'"

"But what?" asked Anna angrily. She longed to shake her.

"Why, that about marrying you. I told him it was rot, and I was sure you wouldn't, but as he didn't know what rot was, it wasn't much good. He hunted it out in the dictionary, and still he didn't know."

Anna stood looking at her with indignant eyes. "You don't know what you have done," she said, "evidently you don't. It is a dreadful thing that the moment Miss Leech leaves you you should begin to talk of such things—such horrid things—with a stranger. A little girl of your age——"

"I didn't begin," whimpered Letty, overcome by the wrath in Anna's voice.

"But all this time you have been going on with it, instead of at once telling Miss Leech or me."

"I never met a—a lover before—I thought it—great fun."

"Then all those flowers were from him?"

"Ye—es." Letty was in tears.

"He thought I knew they were from him?"

No answer.

"Did he?" insisted Anna.

"Ye—es."

"You are a very wicked little girl," said Anna, with awful sternness. "You have been acting untruths every day for ages, which is just as bad as telling them. I don't believe you have an idea of the horridness of what you have done—I hope you have not. Of course your lessons at Lohm have come to an end. You will not go there again. Probably I shall send you home to your mother. I am nearly sure that I shall. Go away." And she pointed to the door.

That night neither Letty nor Miss Leech appeared at supper; both were shut up in their rooms in tears. Miss Leech was quite unable to forgive herself. It was all her fault, she felt. She had been appalled when Anna showed her the heart and told her what had been going on while she was learning to cook in Frau Manske's kitchen. "Such a quiet, respectable-looking young man!" she exclaimed, horror-stricken. "And about to take holy orders!"

"Well, you see he isn't quiet and respectable at all," said Anna. "He is unusually enterprising, and quite without morals. Only a demoralised person would take advantage of a poor little pupil in that way."

She lit a candle, and burnt the heart. "There," she said, when it was in ashes, "that's the end of that. Heaven knows what Letty has been led into saying, or what ideas he has put into her head. I can't bear to think of it. I hadn't the courage to cross-question her much—I was afraid I should hear something that would make me too angry, and I'd have to tell the parson. Anyhow, dear Miss Leech, we will not leave her alone again, ever, will we? I don't suppose a thing like this will happen twice, but we won't let it have a chance, will we? Now don't be too unhappy. Tell me about Mr. Jessup."

It was Miss Leech's fault, Anna knew; but she so evidently knew it herself, and was so deeply distressed, that rebukes were out of the question. She spent the evening and most of the night in useless laments, while, in the room adjoining, Letty lay face downwards on her bed, bathed in tears. For Letty's conscience was in a grievous state of tumult. She had meant well, and she had done badly. She had not thought her aunt would be angry—was she not in full possession of the facts concerning Mr. Jessup's courtship? And had not Miss Leech said that no higher honour could be paid to a woman than to fall in love with her and make her an offer of marriage? Herr Klutz, it is true, was not the sort of person her aunt could marry, for her aunt was stricken in years, and he looked about the same age as her brother Peter; besides, he was clearly, thought Letty, of the guttersnipe class, a class that bit its nails and never married people's aunts. But, after all, her aunt could always say No when the supreme moment arrived, and nobody ought to be offended because they had been fallen in love with, and he was frightfully in love, and talked the most awful rot. Nor had she encouraged him. On the contrary, she had discouraged him; but it was precisely this discouragement, so virtuously administered, that lay so heavily on her conscience as she lay so heavily on her bed. She had been proud of it till this interview with her aunt; since then it had taken on a different complexion, and she was sure, dreadfully sure, that if her aunt knew of it she would be very angry indeed—much, much angrier than she was before. Letty rolled on her bed in torments; for the discouragement administered to Klutz had been in the form of poetry, and poetry written on her aunt's notepaper, and purporting to come from her. She had meant so well, and what had she done? When no answer came by return to his poem hidden in the wallflowers, he had refused to believe that the bouquet had reached its destination. "There has been treachery," he cried; "you have played me false." And he seemed to fold up with affliction.

"I gave it to her all right. She hasn't found the letter yet," said Letty, trying to comfort, and astonished by the loudness of his grief. "It's all right—you wait a bit. She liked the flowers awfully, and kissed them."

"Poor young lover," she thought romantically, "his heart must not bleed too much. Aunt Anna, if she ever does find the letter, will only send him a rude answer. I will answer it for her, and gently discourage him." For if the words that proceeded from Letty's mouth were inelegant, her thoughts, whenever they dwelt on either Mr. Jessup or Herr Klutz, were invariably clothed in the tender language of sentiment.

And she had sat up till very late, composing a poem whose mission was both to discourage and console. It cost her infinite pains, but when it was finished she felt that it had been worth them all. She copied it out in capital letters on Anna's notepaper, folded it up carefully, and tied it with one of her own hair-ribbons to a little bunch of lilies-of-the-valley she had gathered for the purpose in the forest.

This was the poem:—

It is a matter of regret That circumstances won't Allow me to call thee my pet, But as it is they don't.

For why? My many years forbid, And likewise thy position. So take advice, and strive amid Thy tears for meek submission.

ANNA.

And this poem was, at that very moment, as she well knew, in Herr Klutz's waistcoat pocket.



CHAPTER XXII

The ordinary young man, German or otherwise, hungrily emerging from boyhood into a toothsome world made to be eaten, cures himself of his appetite by indulging it till he is ill, and then on a firm foundation of his own foolish corpse, or, as the poet puts it, of his dead self, begins to build up the better things of his later years.

Klutz was an ordinary young man, and arrived at early manhood as hungry as his fellows; but his father was a parson, his grandfather had been a parson, his uncles were all parsons, and Fate, coming cruelly to him in the gloomy robes of the Lutheran Church, his natural follies had had no opportunity of getting out, developing, and dissolving, but remained shut up in his heart, where they amused themselves by seething uninterruptedly, to his great discomfort, while the good parson, in whose care he was, talked to him of the world to come.

"The world to come," thought Klutz, hungering and thirsting for a taste of the world in which he was, "may or may not be very well in its way; but its way is not my way." And he listened in a silence that might be taken either for awed or bored to Manske's expatiations. Manske, of course, interpreted it as awed. "Our young vicar," he said to his wife, "thinks much. He is serious and contemplative beyond his years. He is not a man of many and vain words." To which his wife replied only by a sniff of scepticism.

She had no direct proofs that Klutz was not serious and contemplative, but during his first winter in their house he had fallen into her bad graces because of a certain indelicately appreciative attitude he displayed towards her apple jelly. Not that she grudged him apple jelly in just quantities; both she and her husband were fond of it, and the eating of it was luckily one of those pleasures whose indulgence is innocent. But there are limits beyond which even jelly becomes vicious, and these limits Herr Klutz continually overstepped. Every autumn she made a sufficient number of pots of it to last discreet appetites a whole year. There had always been vicars in their house, and there had never been a dearth of jelly. But this year, so early as Easter, there were only two pots left. She could not conveniently lock it up and refuse to produce any, for then she and her husband would not have it themselves; so all through the winter she had watched the pots being emptied one after the other, and the thinner the rows in her storeroom grew, the more pronounced became her conviction that Klutz's piety was but skin deep. A young man who could behave in so unbridled a fashion could not be really serious; there was something, she thought, that smacked suspiciously of the flesh and the devil about such conduct. Great, then, was her astonishment when, the penultimate pot being placed at Easter on the table, Klutz turned from it with loathing. Nor did he ever look at apple jelly again; nor did he, of other viands, eat enough to keep him in health. He who had been so voracious forgot his meals, and had to be coaxed before he would eat at all. He spent his spare time writing, sitting up sometimes all night, and consuming candles at the same head-long rate with which he had previously consumed the jelly; and when towards May her husband once more commented on his seriousness, Frau Manske's conscience no longer permitted her to sniff.

"You must be ill," she said to him at last, on a day when he had sat through the meals in silence and had refused to eat at all.

"Ill!" burst out Klutz, whose body and soul seemed both to be in one fierce blaze of fever, "I am sick—sick even unto death."

And he did feel sick. Only two days had elapsed since he had received Anna's poem and had been thrown by it into a tumult of delight and triumph; for the discouragement it contained had but encouraged him the more, appearing to be merely the becoming self-depreciation of a woman before him who has been by nature appointed lord. He was perfectly ready to overlook the obstacles to their union to which she alluded. She could not help her years; there were, truly, more of them than he would have wished, but luckily they were not visible on that still lovely face. As to position, he supposed she meant that he was not adelig; but a man, he reflected, compared to a woman, is always adelig, whatever his name may be, by virtue of his higher and nobler nature. He had been for rushing at once to Kleinwalde; but his pupil and confidant had said "Don't," and had said it with such energy that for that day at least he had resisted. And now, the very morning of the day on which the Frau Pastor was asking him whether he were ill, he had received a curt note from Miss Leech, informing him that Miss Letty Estcourt would for the present discontinue her German studies. What had happened? Even the poem, lying warm on his heart, was not able to dispel his fears. He had flown at once to Kleinwalde, feeling that it was absurd not to follow the dictates of his heart and cast himself in person at Anna's no doubt expectant feet, and the door had been shut in his face—rudely shut, by a coarse servant, whose manner had so much enraged him that he had almost shown her the precious verses then and there, to convince her of his importance in that house; indeed, the only consideration that restrained him was a conviction of her ignorance of the English tongue.

"Would you like to see the doctor?" inquired Frau Manske, startled by his looks and words; perhaps he had caught something infectious; an infectious vicar in the house would be horrible.

"The doctor!" cried Klutz; and forthwith quoted the German rendering of the six lines beginning, Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased.

Frau Manske was seriously alarmed. Not aware that he was quoting, she was horrified to hear him calling her Du, a privilege confined to lovers, husbands, and near relations, and asking her questions that she was sure no decent vicar would ever ask the respectable mother of a family. "I am sure you ought to see the doctor," she said nervously, getting up hastily and going to the door.

"No, no," said Klutz; "the doctor does not exist who can help me."

His hand went to the breast-pocket containing the poem, and he fingered it feverishly. He longed to show it to Frau Manske, to translate it for her, to let her see what the young Kleinwalde lady, joint patron with Herr von Lohm of her husband's living, thought of him.

"I will ask my husband about the doctor," persisted Frau Manske, disappearing with unusual haste. If she had stayed one minute longer he would have shown her the poem.

Klutz did not wait to hear what the pastor said, but crushed his felt hat on to his head and started for a violent walk. He would go through Kleinwalde, past the house; he would haunt the woods; he would wait about. It was a hot, gusty May afternoon, and the wind that had been quiet so long was blowing up the dust in clouds; but he hurried along regardless of heat and wind and dust, with an energy surprising in one who had eaten nothing all day. Love had come to him very turbulently. He had been looking for it ever since he left school; but his watchful parents had kept him in solitary places, empty, uninhabited places like Lohm, places where the parson's daughters were either married or were still tied on the cushions of infancy. Sometimes he had been invited, as a great condescension, to the Dellwigs' Sunday parties; and there too he had looked around for Love. But the company consisted solely of stout farmers' wives, ladies of thirty, forty, fifty—of a dizzy antiquity, that is, and their talk was of butter-making and sausages, and they cared not at all for Love. "Oh, Love, Love, Love, where shall I find thee?" he would cry to the stars on his way home through the forest after these evenings; but the stars twinkled coldly on, obviously profoundly indifferent as to whether he found it or not. His chest of drawers was full of the poems into which he had poured the emotions of twenty, the emotions and longings that well-fed, unoccupied twenty mistakes for soul. And then the English Miss had burst upon his gaze, sitting in her carriage on that stormy March day, smiling at him from the very first, piercing his heart through and through with eyes that many persons besides Klutz saw were lovely, and so had he found Love, and for ever lost his interest in apple jelly.

It was a confident, bold Love, with more hopes than fears, more assurance than misgivings. The poem seemed to burn his pocket, so violently did he long to show it round, to tell everyone of his good fortune. The lilies-of-the-valley to which it had been tied and that he wore since all day long in his coat, were hardly brown, and yet he was tired already of having such a secret to himself. What advantage was there in being told by the lady of Kleinwalde that she regretted not being able to call him Laemmchen or Schaetzchen (the alternative renderings his dictionary gave of "pet") if no one knew it?

When he reached the house he walked past it at a snail's pace, staring up at the blank, repellent windows. Not a soul was to be seen. He went on discontentedly. What should he do? The door had been shut in his face once already that day, why he could not imagine. He hesitated, and turned back. He would try again. Why not? The Miss would have scolded the servant roundly when she heard that the person who dwelt in her thoughts as a Laemmchen had been turned away. He went boldly round the grass plot in front of the house and knocked.

The same servant appeared. Instantly on seeing him she slammed the door, and called out "Nicht zu Haus!"

"Ekelhaftes Benehmen!" cried Klutz aloud, flaming into sudden passion. His mind, never very strong, had grown weaker along with his body during these exciting days of love and fasting. A wave of fury swept over him as he stood before the shut door and heard the servant going away; and hardly knowing what he did, he seized the knocker, and knocked and knocked till the woods rang.

There was a sound of hurried footsteps on the path behind him, and turning his head, his hand still knocking, he saw Dellwig running towards him.

"Nanu!" cried Dellwig breathlessly, staring in blankest astonishment. "What in the devil's name are you making this noise for? Is the parson on fire?"

Klutz stared back in a dazed sort of way, his fury dying out at once in the presence of the stronger nature; then, because he was twenty, and because he was half-starved, and because he felt he was being cruelly used, there on Anna's doorstep, in the full light of the evening sun, with Dellwig's eyes upon him, he burst into a torrent of tears.

"Well of all—what's wrong at Lohm, you great sheep?" asked Dellwig, seizing his arm and giving him a shake.

Klutz signified by a movement of his head that nothing was wrong at Lohm. He was crying like a baby, into a red pocket-handkerchief, and could not speak.

Dellwig, still gripping his arm, stared at him a moment in silence; then he turned him round, pushed him down the steps, and walked him off. "Come along, young man," he said, "I want some explanation of this. If you are mad you'll be locked up. We don't fancy madmen about our place. And if you're not mad you'll be fined by the Amtsvorsteher for disorderly conduct. Knocking like that at a lady's door! I wonder you didn't kick it in, while you were about it. It's a good thing the Herrschaften are out."

Klutz really felt ill. He leaned on Dellwig's arm and let himself be helped along, the energy gone out of him with the fury. "You have never loved," was all he said, wiping his eyes.

"Oh that's it, is it? It is love that made you want to break the knocker? Why didn't you go round to the back? Which of them is it? The cook, of course. You look hungry. A Kandidat crying after a cook!" And Dellwig laughed loud and long.

"The cook!" cried Klutz, galvanised by the word into life. "The cook!" He thrust a shaking hand into his breast-pocket and dragged it out, the precious paper, unfolding it with trembling fingers, and holding it before Dellwig's eyes. "So much for your cooks," he said, tremulously triumphant. They were in the road, out of sight of the house. Dellwig took the paper and held it close to his eyes. "What's this?" he asked, scrutinising it. "It is not German."

"It is English," said Klutz.

"What, the governess——?"

Klutz merely pointed to the name at the end. Oh, the sweetness of that moment!

"Anna?" read out Dellwig, "Anna? That is Miss Estcourt's name."

"It is," said Klutz, his tears all dried up.

"It seems to be poetry," said Dellwig slowly.

"It is," said Klutz.

"Why have you got it?"

"Why indeed! It's mine. She sent it to me. She wrote it for me. These flowers——"

"Miss Estcourt? Sent it to you? Poetry? To you?" Dellwig looked up from the paper at Klutz, and examined him slowly from head to foot as if he had never seen him before. His expression while he did it was not flattering, but Klutz rarely noticed expressions. "What's it all about?" he asked, when he had reached Klutz's boots, by which he seemed struck, for he looked at them twice.

"Love," said Klutz proudly.

"Love?"

"Let me come home with you," said Klutz eagerly, "I'll translate it there. I can't here where we might be disturbed."

"Come on, then," said Dellwig, walking off at a great pace with the paper in his hand.

Just as they were turning into the farmyard the rattle of a carriage was heard coming down the road. "Stop," said Dellwig, laying his hand on Klutz's arm, "the Herrschaften have been drinking coffee in the woods—here they are, coming home. You can get a greeting if you wait."

They both stood on the edge of the road, and the carriage with Anna and a selection from her house-party drove by. Dellwig and Klutz swept off their hats. When Anna saw Klutz she turned scarlet—undeniably, unmistakably scarlet—and looked away quickly. Dellwig's lips shaped themselves into a whistle. "Come in, then," he said, glancing at Klutz, "come in and translate your poem."

Seldom had Klutz passed more delicious moments than those in which he rendered Letty's verses into German, with both the Dellwigs drinking in his words. The proud and exclusive Dellwigs! A month ago such a thing would have been too wild a flight of fancy for the most ambitious dream. In the very room in which he had been thrust aside at parties, forgotten in corners, left behind when the others went in to supper, he was now sitting the centre of interest, with his former supercilious hosts hanging on his words. When he had done, had all too soon come to the end of his delightful task, he looked round at them triumphantly; and his triumph was immediately dashed out of him by Dellwig, who said with his harshest laugh, "Put aside all your hopes, young man—Miss Estcourt is engaged to Herr von Lohm."

"Engaged? To Herr von Lohm?" Klutz echoed stupidly, his mouth open and the hand holding the verses dropping limply to his side.

"Engaged, engaged, engaged," Dellwig repeated in a loud sing-song, "not openly, but all the same engaged."

"It is truly scandalous!" cried his wife, greatly excited, and firmly believing that the verses were indeed Anna's. Was she not herself of the race of Weiber, and did she not therefore well know what they were capable of?

"Silence, Frau!" commanded Dellwig.

"And she takes my flowers—my daily offerings, floral and poetical, and she sends me these verses—and all the time she is betrothed to someone else?"

"She is," said Dellwig with another burst of laughter, for Klutz's face amused him intensely. He got up and slapped him on the shoulder. "This is your first experience of Weiber, eh? Don't waste your heartaches over her. She is a young lady who likes to have her little joke and means no harm——"

"She is a person without shame!" cried his wife.

"Silence, Frau!" snapped Dellwig. "Look here, young man—why, what does he look like, sitting there with all the wind knocked out of him? Get him a glass of brandy, Frau, or we shall have him crying again. Sit up, and be a man. Miss Estcourt is not for you, and never will be. Only a vicar could ever have dreamed she was, and have been imposed upon by this poetry stuff. But though you're a vicar you're a man, eh? Here, drink this, and tell us if you are not a man."

Klutz feebly tried to push the glass away, but Dellwig insisted. Klutz was pale to ghastliness, and his eyes were brimming again with tears.

"Oh, this person! Oh, this Englishwoman! Oh, the shameful treatment of an estimable young man!" cried Frau Dellwig, staring at the havoc Anna had wrought.

"Silence, Frau!" shouted Dellwig, stamping his foot. "You can't be treated like this," he went on to Klutz, who, used to drinking much milk at the abstemious parsonage, already felt the brandy running along his veins like liquid fire, "you can't be made ridiculous and do nothing. A vicar can't fight, but you must have some revenge."

Klutz started. "Revenge! Yes, but what revenge?" he asked.

"Nothing to do with Miss Estcourt, of course. Leave her alone——"

"Leave her alone?" cried his wife, "what, when she it is——"

"Silence, Frau!" roared Dellwig. "Leave her alone, I say. You won't gain anything there, young man. But go to her Braeutigam Lohm and tell him about it, and show him the stuff. He'll be interested."

Dellwig laughed boisterously, and took two or three rapid turns up and down the room. He had not lived with old Joachim and seen much of old Lohm and the surrounding landowners without having learned something of their views on questions of honour. Axel Lohm he knew to be specially strict and strait-laced, to possess in quite an unusual degree the ideals that Dellwig thought so absurd and so unpractical, the ideals, that is, of a Christian gentleman. Had he not known him since he was a child? And he had always been a prig. How would he like Miss Estcourt to be talked about, as of course she would be talked about? Klutz's mouth could not be stopped, and the whole district would know what had been going on. Axel Lohm could not and would not marry a young lady who wrote verses to vicars; and if all relations between Lohm and Kleinwalde ceased, why then life would resume its former pleasant course, he, Dellwig, staying on at his post, becoming, as was natural, his mistress's sole adviser, and certainly after due persuasion achieving all he wanted, including the brick-kiln. The plainness and clearness of the future was beautiful. He walked up and down the room making odd sounds of satisfaction, and silencing his wife with vigour every time she opened her lips. Even his wife, so quick as a rule of comprehension, had not grasped how this poem had changed their situation, and how it behoved them now not to abuse their mistress before a mischief-making young man. She was blinded, he knew, by her hatred of Miss Estcourt. Women were always the slaves, in defiance of their own interests, to some emotion or other; if it was not love, then it was hatred. Never could they wait for anything whatever. The passing passion must out and be indulged, however fatal the consequences might be. What a set they were! And the best of them, what fools. He glanced angrily at his wife as he passed her, but his glance, travelling from her to Klutz, who sat quite still with head sunk on his chest, legs straight out before him, the hand with the paper loosely held in it hanging down out of the cuffless sleeve nearly to the floor, and vacant eyes staring into space, his good humour returned, and he gave another harsh laugh. "Well?" he said, standing in front of this dejected figure. "How long will you sit there? If I were you I'd lose no time. You don't want those two to be making love and enjoying themselves an hour longer than is necessary, do you? With you out in the cold? With you so cruelly deceived? And made to look so ridiculous? I'd spoil that if I were you, at once."