A few weeks later, a great variety of cabin-trunks and saratogas blocked the corridor of the PENSION. The addresses they bore were in Johanna's small, pointed handwriting.
On this, the last afternoon of the Cayhills' stay in Leipzig, Maurice saw Johanna again for the first time. She had had her hands full. In the woods, on that damp October night, and on her subsequent wanderings, Ephie had caught a severe cold; and the doctor had feared an inflammation of the lungs. This had been staved off; but there was also, it seemed, a latent weakness of the chest, hitherto unsuspected, which kept them anxious. Ephie still had a dry, grating cough, which was troublesome at night, and left her tired and fretful by day. They were travelling direct to the South of France, where they intended to remain until she had quite recovered her strength.
Maurice sat beside Johanna on the deep sofa where he and Ephie had worked at harmony together. But the windows of the room were shut now, and the room itself looked unfamiliar; for it had been stripped of all the trifles and fancy things that had given it such a comfortable, home-like air, and was only the bare, lodging-house room once more. Johanna was as self-possessed as of old, a trifle paler, a trifle thinner of lip.
She told him that they intended leaving quietly the next morning, without partings or farewells. Ephie was still weak and the less excitement she had to undergo, the better it would be for her.
"Then I shall not see Ephie again?" queried Maurice in surprise.
Johanna thought not: it would only recall the unhappy night to her memory; besides, she had not asked to see him, as she no doubt would have done, had she wished it.—At this, the eleventh hour, Johanna did not think it worth while to tell Maurice that Ephie bore him an unalterable grudge.
"I never want to see him again."
That was all she said to Johanna; but, during her illness, she had brooded long over his treachery. And even if things had come all right in the end, she would never have been able to forgive his speaking to her of Schilsky in the way he had done. No, she was finished with Maurice Guest; he was too double-faced, too deceitful for her.—And she cried bitterly, with her face turned to the wall.
The young man could not but somewhat lamely agree with Johanna that it was better to let the matter end thus: for he felt that towards the Cayhills he had been guilty of a breach of trust such as it is difficult to forgive. At the same time, he was humanly hurt that Ephie would not even say good-bye to him.
He asked their further plans, and learnt that as soon as Ephie was well again, they would sail for New York.
"My father has cabled twice for us."
Johanna's manner was uncompromisingly dry and short. After her last words, there was a long pause, and Maurice made a movement to rise. But she put out her hand and detained him.
"There is something I should like to say to you." And thereupon, with the abruptness of a nervous person: "When I have seen my sister and mother safe back, I intend leaving home myself. I am going to Harvard."
Maurice realised that the girl was telling him a fact of considerable importance to herself, and did his best to look interested.
"Really? That's always been a wish of yours, hasn't it?"
"Yes." Johanna coloured, hesitated as he had never known her to do, then burst out: "And now there is nothing in the way of it." She drew her thumb across the leaf-corners of a book that was lying on the table. "Oh, I know what you will say: how, now that Ephie has turned out to be weak and untrustworthy, there is all the more reason for me to remain with her, to look after her. But that is not possible." She faced him sharply, as though he had contradicted her. "I am incapable of pretending to be the same when my feelings have changed; and, as I told you—as I knew that night—I shall never be able to feel for Ephie as I did before. I am ready, as I said, to take all the blame for what has happened; I was blind and careless. But if the care and affection of years count for nothing; if I have been so little able to win her confidence; if, indeed, I have only succeeded in making her dislike me, by my care of her, so that when she is in trouble, she turns from me, instead of to me—why, then I have failed lamentably in what I had made the chief duty of my life."
"Besides," she continued more quietly, "there is another reason: Ephie is going to fall a victim to her nerves. I see that; and my poor, foolish mother is doing her best to foster it.—You smile? Only because you do not understand what it means. It is no laughing matter. If an American woman once becomes conscious of her nerves, then Heaven help her!—Now I am not of a disinterested enough nature to devote myself to sick-nursing where there is no real sickness. And then, too, my mother intends taking a French maid back with her, and a person of that class will perform such duties much more competently than I."
She spoke with bitterness. Maurice mumbled some words of sympathy, wondering why she should choose to say these things to him.
"Even at home my place is filled," continued Johanna. "The housekeeper who was appointed during our absence has been found so satisfactory that she will continue in the post after our return. Everywhere, you see, I have proved superfluous. There, as here."
"I'm sure you're mistaken," said Maurice with more warmth. "And, Miss Joan, there's something I should like to say, if I may. Don't you think you take what has happened here a little too seriously? No doubt Ephie behaved foolishly. But was it after all any more than a girlish escapade?"
"Too seriously?"
Johanna turned her shortsighted eyes on the young man, and gazed at him almost pityingly. How little, oh, how little, she said to herself, one mortal knew and could know of another, in spite of the medium of speech, in spite of common experiences! Some of the nights at the beginning of Ephie's illness returned vividly to her mind, nights, when she, Johanna, had paced her room by the hour, filled with a terrible dread, a numbing uncertainty, which she would sooner have died than have let cross her lips. She had borne it quite alone, this horrible fear; her mother had been told of the whole affair only what it was absolutely necessary for her to know. And, naturally enough, the young man who now sat at her side, being a man, could not be expected to understand. But the consciousness of her isolation made Johanna speak with renewed harshness.
"Too seriously?" she repeated. "Oh, I think not. The girlish escapade, as you call it, was the least of it. If that had been all, if it had only been her infatuation for some one who was unworthy of her, I could have forgiven Ephie till seventy times seven. But, after all these years, after the way I have loved her—no, idolised her!—for her to treat me as she did—do you think it possible to take that too seriously? There was no reason she should not have had her little secrets. If she had let me see that something was going on, which she did not want to tell me about, do you think I should have forced her?"—and Johanna spoke in all good faith, forgetful of how she had been used to clip and doctor Ephie's sentiments. "But that she could deceive me wilfully, and lie so lightly, with a smile, when, all the time, she was living a double life, one to my face and one behind my back—that I cannot forgive. Something has died in me that I used to feel for her. I could never trust her again, and where there is no trust there can be no real love."
"She didn't understand what she was doing. She is so young."
"Just for that reason. So young, and so skilled in deceit. That is hardest of all, even to think of: that she could wear her dear innocent face, while behind it, in her brain, were cold, calculating thoughts how she could best deceive me! If there had been but a single sign to waken my suspicions, then, yes, then I could have forgiven her," said Johanna, and again forgot how often of late she had been puzzled by the subtle change in Ephie. "If I could just know that, in spite of her efforts, she had been too candid to succeed!"
She had unburdened herself and it had been a relief to her, but nothing could be helped or mended. Both knew this, and after a few polite questions about her future plans and studies, Maurice rose to take his leave.
"Say good-bye to them both for me, and give Ephie my love."
"I will. I think she will be sorry afterwards that she did not see you. She has always liked you."
"Good-bye then. Or perhaps it is only AUF WIEDERSEHEN?"
"I hardly think so." Johanna had returned to her usual sedate manner. "If I do visit Europe again, it will not be for five or six years at least."
"And that's a long time. Who knows where I may be, by then!"
He held Johanna's hand in his, and saw her gauntly slim figure outlined against the bare sitting-room. It was not likely that they would ever meet again. But he could not summon up any very lively feelings of regret. Johanna had not touched him deeply; she had left him as cool as he had no doubt left her; neither had found the key to the other. Her chief attraction for him had been her devotion to Ephie; and now, having been put to the test, this was found wanting. She had been wounded in her own pride and self-love, and could not forgive. At heart she was no more generous and unselfish than the rest.
He repeated farewell messages as he stood in the passage. Johanna held the front door open for him, and, as he went down the stairs, he heard it close behind him, with that extreme noiselessness that was characteristic of Johanna's treatment of it.
The following morning, shortly after ten o'clock, a train steamed out of the THURINGER BAHNHOF, carrying the Cayhills with it. The day was misty and cheerless, and none of the three travellers turned her head to give the town a parting glance. They left unattended, without flowers or other souvenirs, without any of the demonstratively pathetic farewells, the waving of hats, and crowding about the carriage-door, which one of the family, at least, had connected inseverably with their departure. And thus Ephie's musical studies came to an abrupt and untimely end.
"My faith in women is shattered. I shall never believe in a woman again."
Dove paced the floor of Maurice's room with long and steady strides, beneath which a particular board creaked at intervals. His voice was husky, and the ruddiness of his cheeks had paled.
At the outset of Ephie's illness, Dove had called every morning at the PENSION, to make inquiries and to leave his regards. But when the story leaked out, as it soon did, in an exaggerated and distorted form, he straightway ceased his visits. Thus he was wholly unprepared for the family's hurried departure, the news of which was broken to him by Maurice. Dove was dumbfounded. Not a single sententious phrase crossed his lips; and he remained unashamed of the moisture that dimmed his eyes. But he maintained his bearing commendably; and it was impossible not to admire the upright, manly air with which he walked down the street.
The next day, however, he returned, and was silent no longer. He made no secret of having been hard hit; just as previously he had let his friends into his hopes and intentions, so now every one heard of his reverses. He felt a tremendous need of unbosoming himself; he had been so sure of success, or, at least, so unthinking of failure, and the blow to his selfesteem was a rude one.
Maurice sat with his hands in his pockets, and tried to urge reason. But Dove would not admit even the possibility of his having been mistaken. He had received innumerable proofs of Ephie's regard for him.
"Remember how young she was! Girls of that age never know their own minds," said Maurice. But Dove was inclined to take Johanna's sterner view, and to cry: "So young and so untender!" for which he, too, substituted "untrue"; and, just on this score, to deduce unfavourable inferences for Ephie's whole moral character. As Maurice listened to him, he could not help thinking that Johanna's affection had been of the same nature as Dove's, in other words, had had a touch of the masculine about it: it had existed only as long as it could guide and subordinate; it denied to its object any midget attempt at individual life; it set up lofty moral standards, and was implacable when a smaller, frailer being found it impossible to live up to them.
At the same time, he was sorry for Dove, who, in his blindness, had laid himself open to receive this snubbing; and he listened patiently, even a thought flattered by his confidence, until he learnt from Madeleine that Dove was making the round of his acquaintances, and behaving in the same way to anyone who would let him. Then he found that the openness with which Dove related his past hopes, and the marks of affection Ephie had given him, bordered on indecency. He said so, with a wrathful frankness; but Dove could not see it in that light, and was not offended.
As the personal smart weakened, the more serious question that Dove had to face was, what he was going to tell his relatives at home. For it now came out that he had represented the affair to them as settled; in his perfectly sincere optimism, he had regarded himself as an all but engaged man. And the point that disturbed him was, how to back out with dignity, yet without violating the truth, on which he set great store.
"I'm sure he needn't let that trouble him," said Madeleine, on hearing of his dilemma. "He has only to say that HE has changed his mind, which is true enough."
This was the conclusion Dove eventually came to himself—though not with such unseemly haste as Madeleine. Having approached the matter from all sides, he argued that it would be more considerate to Ephie to put it in this light than to tell the story in detail. And consequently, two elderly people in Peterborough nodded to each other one morning over the breakfast-table, and agreed that Edward had done well. They had not been much in favour of the American match, but they had trusted implicitly in their son's good sense, and now, as ever, he had acted in the most becoming way. He had never given them an hour's uneasiness since his birth.
Dove wrote:
CIRCUMSTANCES HAVE ARISEN, MY DEAR PARENTS, WHICH MAKE IT INCONTROVERTIBLY CLEAR TO ME THAT THE YOUNG LADY TO WHOM I WAS PAYING MY ADDRESSES WHEN I CONSULTED YOU IN SUMMER AND MYSELF WOULD NOT HAVE KNOWN TRUE HAPPINESS IN OUR UNION. ON MORE INTIMATE ACQUAINTANCE IT TRANSPIRED THAT OUR CHARACTERS WERE TOTALLY UNSUITED. I HAVE THEREFORE FOUND IT ADVISABLE TO BANISH THE AFFAIR FROM MY MIND AND TO DEVOTE MYSELF WHOLLY TO MY STUDIES.
As time passed, and Dove was able to view what had happened more objectively, he began to feel and even to hint that, all things considered, he had had a rather lucky escape; and from this, it was not very far to believing that if he had not just seen through the whole affair from the beginning, he had at any rate had some inkling of it; and now, instead of giving proofs of Ephie's affection, he narrated the gradual growth of his suspicions, and how these had ultimately been verified. In conclusion, he congratulated himself on having drawn back, with open eyes, while there was still time.
"Like his cheek!" said Madeleine. "But he could imagine himself into being the Shah of Persia, if he sat down and gave his mind to it. I don't believe the snub is going to do him a bit of good. He bobs up again like a cork, irrepressible. HAVE you heard him quote: 'Frailty thy name is woman!' or: 'If women could be fair and yet not fond'?—It's as good as a play."
But altogether, Madeleine was very sharp of tongue since she learnt the part Maurice had played in what, for a day, was the scandal of the English-speaking colony. She had taken him to task at once, for his "lamentable interference."
"Haven't I warned you, Maurice, not to mix yourself up in Louise's affairs? No good can come of it. She breeds mischief. And if that absurd child had really drowned herself"—in the version of the story that had reached Madeleine's ears, Maurice was represented fishing Ephie bodily from the river—"you would have had to bear the whole brunt of the blame. It ought to teach you a lesson. For you're just the kind of boy women will always take advantage of, a mean advantage, you know. Consider how you were treated in this case—by both of them! They were not a scrap grateful to you for what you did—women never are. They only look down on you for letting them have their own way. Kindness and complaisance don't move them. A well-developed biceps and a cruel mouth—that's what they want, and that's all!" she wound up with a flourish, in an extreme bad temper.
She sat, one dull November afternoon, at her piano, and continued to run her fingers over the keys. Maurice leant on the lid, and listened to her. But they had barely exchanged a word, when there was a light tap at the door, and Krafft entered. Both started at his unexpected appearance, and Madeleine cried: "You come in like a ghost, to frighten people out of their wits."
Krafft was buttoned to the chin in a travelling-ulster, and looked pale and thin.
"What news from St. Petersburg?" queried Madeleine with a certain asperity.
But Maurice recalled an errand he had to do in town; and, on hearing this, Krafft, who was lolling aimlessly, declared that he would accompany him.
"But you've only just come!" expostulated Madeleine. "What in the name of goodness did you climb the stairs for?"
He patted her cheek, without replying.
The young men went away together, Maurice puffing somewhat ostentatiously at a cigarette. The wind was cold, and Krafft seemed to shrink into his ulster before it, keeping his hands deep in his pockets. But from time to time, he threw a side-glance at his friend, and at length asked, in the tone of appeal which Maurice found it hard to withstand: "What's the matter, LIEBSTER? Why are you so different?—so changed?"
"The matter? Nothing—that I'm aware of," said Maurice, and considered the tip of his cigarette.
"Oh, yes, there is," and Krafft laid a caressing hand on his companion's arm. "You are changed. You're not frank with me. I feel such things at once."
"Well, how on earth am I to know when to be frank with you, and when not? Before you ... not very long ago, you behaved as if you didn't want to have anything more to do with me."
"You are changed, and, if I'm not mistaken, I know why," said Krafft, ignoring his answer. "You have been listening to gossip—to what my enemies say of me."
"I don't listen to gossip. And I didn't know you had enemies, as you call them."
"I?—and not have enemies?" He flared up as though Maurice had affronted him. "My good fellow, did you ever bear of a man worth his salt, who didn't have enemies? It's the penalty one pays: only the dolts and the 'all-too-many' are friends with the whole world. No one who has work to do that's worth doing, can avoid making enemies. And who knows what a friend is, who hasn't an enemy to match him? It's a question of light and shade, theme and counter-theme, of artistic proportion." He laughed, in his superior way. But directly afterwards, he dropped back into his former humble tone. "But that you, my friend, are so ready to let yourself be influenced—I should not have believed it of you."
"What I heard, I heard from Furst; and I have no reason to suspect him of falsehood.—Of course, if you assure me it was not true, that's a different thing." He turned so sharply that he sent a beautiful flush over Krafft's face. "Come, give me your word, Heirtz, and things will be straight again."
But Krafft merely shrugged his shoulders, and his colour subsided as rapidly as it had risen.
"Are you still such an outsider," he asked, "after all this time—in my society—as to attach importance to a word? What is 'giving a word'? Do you really think it is of any value? May I not give it tonight, and take it back to-morrow, according to the mood I am in, according to whether I believe it myself or not, at the moment?—You think a thing must either be true or not true? You are wrong. Do you believe, when you answer a question in the affirmative or the negative, that you are actually telling the truth? No, my friend, to be perfectly truthful one would need to lose oneself in a maze of explanation, such as no questioner would have the patience to listen to. One would need to take into account the innumerable threads that have gone to making the statement what it is. Do you think, for instance, if I answered yes or no, in the present case, it would be true? If I deny what you heard—does that tell you that I have longed with all my heart for it to come to pass? Or say I admit it—I should need to unroll my life before you to make you understand. No, there's no such thing as absolute truth. If there were, the finest subtleties of existence would be lost. There is neither positive truth nor positive untruth; life is not so coarse-fibred as that. And only the grossest natures can be satisfied with a blunt yes or no. Truth?—it is one of the many miserable conventions the human brain has tortured itself with, and its first principle is an utter lack of the imaginative faculties.—A DIEU!"
In the days that followed, Maurice threw himself heart and soul into his work. He had lost ground of late, he saw it plainly now: after his vigorous start, he had quickly grown slack. He was not, to-day, at the stage he ought to be, and there was not a doubt but that Schwarz saw it, too. Now that he, came to think of it, he had more than once been aware of a studied coolness in the master's manner, of a rather ostentatious indifference to the quality of the work he brought to the class: and this he knew by hearsay to be Schwarz's attitude towards those of his pupils in whom his interest was waning. If he, Maurice, wished to regain his place in the little Pasha's favour, he must work like a coal-heaver. But the fact was, the strenuous industry to which he now condemned himself, was something of a relaxation after the mental anxiety he had recently undergone; this striking of a black and white keyboard was a pleasant, thought-deadening employment, and could be got through, no matter what one's mood.—And so he rose early again, and did not leave the house till he had five hours' practice behind him.
WER SICH DER EINSAMKEIT ERGIEBT, ACH, DER IST BALD ALLEIN: at the end of a fortnight, Maurice smiled to find the words of Goethe's song proved on himself. If he did not go to see his friends, none of them came to him. Dove, who was at the stage of: "I told you so," in the affair of the Cayhills, had found fresh listeners, who were more sympathetic than Maurice could be expected to be: and Madeleine was up to her ears in work, as she phrased it, with the "C minor Beethoven."
"Agility of finger equals softening of the brain" was a frequent gibe of Krafft's; and now and then, at the close of a hard day's work, Maurice believed that the saying contained a grain of truth. Opening both halves of his window, he would lean out on the sill, too tired for connected thought. But when dusk fell, he lay on the sofa, with his arms clasped under his head, his knees crossed in the air.
At first, in his new buoyancy of spirit, he was able to keep foolish ideas behind him, as well as to put away all recollection of the disagreeable events he had been mixed up in of late: after having, for weeks, borne a load that was too heavy for him, he breathed freely once more. The responsibility of taking care of Ephie had been removed from him—and this by far outweighed the little that he missed her. The matter had wound up, too, in a fairly peaceable way; all being considered, things might have been worse. So, at first, he throve under his light-heartedness; and only now became aware how great the strain of the past few weeks had been. His chief sensation was relief, and also of relief at being able to feel relieved—indeed, the moment even came when he thought it would be possible calmly to accept the fact of Louise having left the town, and of his never being likely to see her again.
Gradually, however, he began to be astonished at himself, and in the background of his mind, there arose a somewhat morbid curiosity, even a slight alarm, at his own indifference. He found it hard to understand himself. Could his feelings, those feelings which, a week or two ago, he had believed unalterable, have changed in so short a time? Was his nature one of so little stability? He began to consider himself with something approaching dismay, and though, all this time, he had been going about on a kind of mental tiptoe, for fear of rousing something that might be dormant in him, he now could not help probing himself, in order to see if the change he observed were genuine or not. And this with a steadily increasing frequency. Instead of continuing thankful for the respite, he ultimately grew uneasy under it. Am I a person of this weak, straw-like consistency, to be tossed about by every wind that blows? Is there something beneath it all that I cannot fathom?
He had not seen Louise since the night he had left her asleep, beside the sofa; and he was resolved not to see her—not, at least, until she wished to see him. It was much better for him that the uncertainties of the bygone months did not begin anew; then, too, she had called him to her when she was in trouble, and not for anything in the world would he presume on her appeal. Besides, his presence would recall to her the unpleasant details connected with Ephie's visit, which he hoped she had by this time begun to forget. Thus he argued with himself, giving several reasons where one would have served; and the upshot of it was, that his own state of mind occupied him considerably.
His friends noticed the improvement in him; the careworn expression that had settled down on him of late gave way to his old air of animation; and on all the small topics of the day, he brought a sympathetic interest to bear, such as people had ceased to expect from him. Madeleine, in particular, was satisfied with her "boy," as she took to calling him. She noted and checked off, in wise silence, each inch of his progress along the road of healthy endeavour; and the relations between them became almost as hearty as at the commencement of their friendship. Privately, she believed that the events of the past month had taught him a lesson, which he would not soon forget. It was sufficient, however, if they had inspired him with a distrust of Louise, which would keep him from her for the present; for Madeleine had grounds for believing that before many weeks had passed, Louise would have left Leipzig.
So she kept Maurice as close to her as work permitted; and as the winter's flood of concerts set in, in full force, he accompanied her, almost nightly, to the Old Gewandhaus or the ALBERTHALLE; for Madeleine was an indefatigable concert-goer, and never missed a performer of note, rarely even a first appearance at the HOTEL DE PRUSSE or a BLUTHNER MATINEE. On the night she herself played in an AIBENDUNTERHALTUNG, with the easily gained success that attended all she did, Maurice went with her to the green-room, and was the first afterwards to tell her how her performance had "gone." That same evening she took him with her to the house of friends of hers, the Hensels. There he met some of the best musical society of the place, made a pleasant impression, and was invited to return.
Meanwhile, winter had set in, with extreme severity. Piercing north winds drove down the narrow streets, and raged round the corners of the Gewandhaus square: on emerging from the PROBE on a Wednesday morning, one's breath was cut clean off, and the tears raced down one's cheeks. When the wind dropped, there were hard black frosts—a deadly, stagnant kind of cold, which seemed to penetrate every pore of the skin and every cranny of the house. Then came the snow, which fell for three days and nights on end, and for several nights after, so that the town was lost under a white pall: house-entrances were with difficulty kept free, and the swept streets were banked with walls of snow, four and five feet high. The night-frosts redoubled their keenness; the snow underfoot crackled like electric sparks; the sleighs crunched the roads. But except for this, and for the tinkling of the sleigh-bells, the streets were as noiseless as though laid with straw, and especially while fresh snow still formed a soft coating on the crisp layer below. All dripping water hung as icicles; water froze in ewers and pitchers; milk froze in cans and jugs; and this though the great stoves in the dwelling-rooms were heated to bursting-point. Red-nosed, red-eared men, on whose beards and moustaches the breath had turned to ice-drops, cried to one another at street-corners that such a winter had not been known for thirty years; and, as they spoke, they stamped their feet, and clapped their hands, to keep the chilly blood agoing. Women muffled and veiled themselves like Orientals, hardly showing the tips of their noses; and all manner of strange, antiquated fur-garments saw the day. At night, if one opened a window, and peered out at the houses crouching beneath their thick white load, and at the deserted, snow-bound streets, over which the street-lamps threw a pale, uncertain light—at night, familiar things took on an unfamiliar aspect, and the well-known streets might have been the untrodden ways that led to a new world.
Early in November, all ponds and pools were bearing, and forthwith many hundreds of people forgot the severity of the weather, and thronged out with their skates.
Maurice was among the first. He was a passionate skater; and it was the one form of sport in which he excelled. As four o'clock came round, he could contain himself no longer; he would rather have gone without his dinner, than have missed, on the JOHANNATEICH, the two hours that elapsed before the sweepers, crying: "FEIERABEND!" drove the skaters before them, with their brooms. In a tightly buttoned square jacket, the collar of which was turned up as far as it would go, with the flaps of his astrachan cap drawn over his cars, his hands in coarse woollen gloves, Maurice defied the cold, flying round the two ponds that formed the JOHANNATEICH, or practising intricate figures with a Canadian acquaintance in a corner.
Madeleine watched him approvingly from one of the wooden bridges that spanned the neck connecting the ponds. She rejoiced at his glowing face and vigorous, boyish pleasure, also at the skill that marked him out as one of the best skaters present. For some time, Maurice tried in vain to persuade her to join him. Madeleine, usually so confident, was here diffident and timid. She had never in her life attempted to skate, and was sure she would fall. And what should she do if she broke a thumb or strained a finger?—with her PRUFUNG just before the door. She would never have the courage to confess to Schwarz how it had happened; for he was against "sport" in any form. But Maurice laughed at her fears.
"There is not the least chance of your falling," he cried up to her. "Do come down, Madeleine. Before you've gone round twice, you'll be able to throw off all those mufflings."
Finally, she let herself be persuaded, and according to his promise, Maurice remained at her side from the moment of her first, hesitating steps, each of which was accompanied by a faint scream, to the time when, with the aid of only one of his hands, she made uncertain efforts at striking out. She did not learn quickly; but she was soon as enthusiastic a skater as Maurice himself; and he fell into the habit of calling for her, every afternoon, on his way to the ponds.
Dove was also of assistance in the beginning, and, as usual, was well up in the theory of the thing, though he did not shine in practice.
"Oh, bother, never mind how you go at first. That'll come afterwards," said Maurice impatiently. But Dove thought the rules should be observed from the beginning, and gave Madeleine minute instructions how to place her feet.
Towards five o'clock, the ice grew more crowded, and especially was this the case on Wednesdays and Saturdays, when the schools had half-holidays. On one of these latter days, Maurice did not find Madeleine at home; and he had been on the ponds for nearly an hour, before he espied her on a bench beside the GARDEROBE, having her skates put on by a blue-smocked attendant. He waved his cap to her, and skated over.
"Why are you so late?"
"Oh, thank goodness, there you are. I should never have dared to stand up alone in this crowd. Aren't these children awful? Get away, you little brutes! If you touch me, I'll fall.—Here, give me change," she said to the ice-man, holding out a twenty-pfennig piece.
Maurice saw that she was unusually excited, and as soon as he had drawn her out of reach of the children, asked her the reason.
"I've something interesting to tell you, Maurice."
But here Dove, coming up behind, took possession of her left hand, with no other greeting than the military salute, which, on the ice, he adopted for all his friends, male and female, alike; and Madeleine hastily swallowed the rest of her sentence.
They skated round the larger of the ponds several times without stopping. The cold evening air stung their faces; the sun had gone down in a lurid haze; Madeleine's skirts swayed behind her and lent her a fictitious grace.
But presently she cried a halt, and while she rested in a quiet corner, they watched Maurice doing a complicated figure, which he and his Canadian friend had invented the day before. Dove was explaining how it was done—"It is really not so hard as it looks"—when, with a cry of "ACHTUNG!" some one whizzed in among them, scattered the group, and, revolving on himself, ended with a jump in the air. It was James. He took out his handkerchief and blew his nose, in the most unconcerned manner possible.
"I don't think such acrobatic tricks should be allowed," said Madeleine disapprovingly; she had been forced to grab Dove's arm to keep her balance.
"Say, do you boys know the river has six inches and will be open to-morrow, if it isn't to-day?" asked James, stooping to tighten a strap.
"Is that so? Oh gee, that's fine!" cried Miss Martin, who had skated leisurely up in his rear. "Say, you people, why don't we fix up a party an' go up it nights? A lady in my boarding-house done that with some folks she was acquainted with last year. Seems to me we oughtn't to be behind."
Miss Martin was a skilled and graceful skater, and looked her best in a dark fur hat and jacket, which set off her abundance of pale flaxen hair. Others had followed her, and it was resolved to form a party for the following evening, provided Dove had previously ascertained if the river actually was "free," in order that they ran no risk of being ignominiously turned off.
"The ice may be a bit rough, but it's a fine run to Connewitz."
"An' by moonlight, too—but say, is there a moon? Why, I presume there ought to be," said Miss Martin.
"'Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?'" quoted Dove, examining a tiny pocket-calendar.
"Oh gee, that's fine!" repeated Miss Martin, on hearing his answer. "Say, we must dance a FRANCAISE. Mr. Guest, you an' I'll be partners, I surmise," and ceasing to waltz and pirouette with James, she took a long sweep, then stood steady, and let her skates bear her out to the middle of the pond. Her skirts clung close in front, and swept out behind her lithe figure, until it was lost in the crowd.
"Don't you wish YOU could skate like that?" asked the sharp-tongued little student, called Dickensey, who was standing beside Madeleine. Madeleine, who held him in contempt because his trousers were baggy at the knees, and because he had once appeared at a ball in white cotton gloves, answered with asperity that there were other things in life besides skating. She had no further chance of speaking to Maurice in private, so postponed telling her news till the following evening.
Shortly after eight o'clock, the next night, a noisy party whistled and hallooed in the street below Maurice's window. He was the last to join, and then some ten or eleven of them picked their steps along the hard-frozen ruts of the SCHLEUSSIGER WEG, a road that followed the river to the outskirts of the town. Just above the GERMANIABAD, a rough scat had been erected on the ice, for the convenience of skaters. They were the first to make use of it; the snow before it was untrodden; and the Pleisse wound white and solitary between its banks of snow.
They set off in a higgledy-piggledy fashion, each striking out for himself. When, however, they had passed the narrower windings, gone under the iron bridge which was low enough to catch the unwary by the forehead, and when the full breadth of the river was before them, they took hands, and, forming a long line, skated in time to the songs some one struck up, and in which all joined: THE ROSE OF SHARON, JINGLE BELLS, THERE IS A TAVERN IN OUR TOWN. As they advanced to the corners where the big trees trailed their naked branches on the ice, just as in summer they sank their leaves in the water, Miss Jensen, who, despite her proportions, was a surprisingly good skater, sent her big voice over the snow-bound stillness in an aria from the PROPHET; and after this, Miss Martin, no; to be done, struck up the popular ALLERSEELEN. This was the song of the hour; they all knew it, and up and down and across the ice rang out their voices in unison: WIE EINST IM MAI, WIE EINST IM MAI.
Inside Wagner's WALDCAFE at Connewitz, they sat closely packed round one of the wooden tables, and drank beer and coffee, and ate BERLINER PFANNKUCHEN. The great iron stove was almost red-hot; the ladies threw off their wrappings; cold faces glowed and burnt, and frozen hands tingled. One and all were in high spirits, and the jollity reached a climax when, having exchanged hats, James and Miss Jensen cleared a space in the middle of the floor and danced a nigger-dance, the lady with her skirts tucked up above her ankles. In the adjoining room, some one began to play a concertina, and then two or three couples stood up and danced, with much laughter and many outcries at the narrowness of the space. Even Dove joined in, his partner being a very pretty American, whom Miss Martin had brought with her, and whose side Dove had not left for a moment. Only Madeleine and Dickensey sat aloof, and for once were agreed: Americans were really "very bad form." There was no livelier pair than Maurice and Miss Martin; the latter's voice could be heard above all others, as she taught Maurice new steps in a corner of the room. Her flaxen hair had partly come loose, and she did not stop to put it up. They were the first to run through the dark garden, past the snow-laden benches and arbours, which, in summer, were buried in greenery; and, from the low wooden landing place, they jumped hand in hand on to the ice, and had shot a long way down the river before any of the rest could follow them.
But this did not please Madeleine. As it was, she was vexed at not having had the opportunity of a quiet word with Maurice; and when she had laboriously skated up, with Dickensey, to the spot where, in a bright splash of moonlight, Maurice and Miss Martin were cutting ingenious capers, she cried to the former in a peremptory tone: "There's something wrong with my skate, Maurice. Will you look at it, please?" and as sharply declined Dickensey's proffered aid.
Maurice came to her side at once, and in this way she detained him. But Dickensey hovered not far off, and Miss Martin was still in sight. Madeleine caught her skate in a crack, fell on her knee, and said she had now loosened the strap altogether. She sat down on a heap of snow, and Dickensey's shade vanished good-naturedly round a corner.
"Well, YOU seem to be enjoying yourself," she said as Maurice drew off his gloves and knelt down.
"Why, yes, aren't you?" he replied so frankly that she did not continue the subject.
"I've been trying all the evening to get a word with you. I told you yesterday, you remember, that I wanted to speak to you. Sit down here, for a moment, so that we can talk in peace," and she spread part of her skirt over the snow-heap.
Maurice complied, and she could not discover any trace of reluctance in his manner.
"I want your advice," she continued. "I was taken quite by surprise myself. Schwarz sent for me, you know, after counterpoint. It was about my PRUFUNG at Easter. If I play then, it's a case of the C minor Beethoven. Well, now he says it's a thousand pities for me to break off just at the stage I'm at, and he wants me to stay for another year. If I do, he'll give me the G major—that's a temptation, isn't it? On the other hand, I shall have been here my full time—three years—at Easter. That's a year longer than I originally intended, and I feel I'm getting too old to be a pupil. But this talk with Schwarz has upset my plans. I'm naturally flattered at his interesting himself in me. He wouldn't do it for every one. And I do feel I could gain an immense deal in another year.—Now, what do you think?"
"Why, stay, of course, Madeleine. If you can afford it, that is. I can't imagine anyone wanting to leave."
"Oh, my capital will last so long, and it's a good enough investment."
"But wasn't a place being kept open for you in a school?"
"Yes; but I don't think a year more or less will make much difference to them. I must sound them, of course, though," said Madeleine, and did not mention that she had written and posted the letter the night before. "Then you advise me to stay?"
"Why, of course," he repeated, and was mildly astonished at her. "If everything is as smooth as you say."
"You would miss me, if I left?"
"Why, of course I should," he said again, and wondered what in the world she was driving at.
"Well, all the better," replied Madeleine. "For when one has really got to like a person, one would rather it made a difference than not."
She was silent after this, and sat looking down the stretch of ice they had travelled: the moon was behind a cloud, and the woods on either side were masses of dense black shadow. Not a soul was in sight; the river was like a deserted highway. Madeleine stared down it, and did not feel exactly satisfied with the result of her investigation. She had not expected anything extraordinary—Heaven forbid!—but she had been uncomfortably conscious of Maurice's surprise. To her last remark, he had made no answer: he was occupied with the screw of one of his skates.
She drew his attention to the fact that, if she remained in Leipzig for another twelvemonth, they would finish at the same time; and thereupon she sketched out a plan of them going somewhere together, and starting a music-school of their own. Maurice, who thought she was jesting, laughingly assented. But Madeleine was in earnest: "Other people have done it—why shouldn't we? We could take a 'cellist with us, and go to America, or Australia, or Canada—there are hundreds of places. And there's a great deal of money in it, I'm sure. A little capital would be needed to begin with, but not much, and I could supply that. You've always said you dreaded going back to the English provinces to decay—here's your chance!"
She saw the whole scheme cut and dried before her. As they, skated after the rest, she continued to enlarge upon it, in a detailed way that astonished Maurice. He confessed that, with a head like hers to conduct it, such a plan stood a fair chance of success; and thus encouraged, Madeleine undertook to make a kind of beginning at once, by sounding some of the numerous friends she had, scattered through America. Her idea was that they should go over together, and travel to various places, giving concerts, and acquainting themselves, as they did so, with the musical conditions of the towns they visited.
"And the 'cellist shall be an American—that will draw."
According to the pace at which they were skating, the others should have remained well out of reach. But on turning a corner, they came upon the whole party dancing a FRANCAISE—which two members whistled—on a patch of ice that was smoother than the rest.
"Here, Guest, come along, we want you," was the cry as soon as Maurice appeared; and, to Madeleine's deep displeasure, she was thrown on Dove, whose skill had not sufficed. When the dancing was over, Maurice once more found himself with Miss Martin, whom, for some distance, he pushed before him, she standing steady on her skates, and talking to him over her shoulder.
"That wasn't a bit pretty of you, Mr. Guest," she asserted, with her long, slow, twanged speech. "It was fixed up yesterday, I recollect, that you were to dance the FRANCAISE with me. Yes, indeed. An' then I had to take up with Mr. Dove. Now Mr. Dove is just a lovely gentleman, but he don't skate elegantly, an' he nearly tumbled me twice. Yes, indeed. But I presume when Miss Wade says come, then you're most obliged to go."
"How is it one don't ever see you now?" she queried a moment later. "It isn't anyhow so pleasurable at dinner as it used to be. But I hear you're working most hard—it's to' bad."
"It's what one comes to here."
"I guess it is. But I do like to see my friends once in a while. Say, now, Mr. Guest, won't you drink coffee with me one afternoon? I'll make you some real American coffee if you do, sir. What they call coffee here don't count."
She turned, offered him her hand, and they began to skate in long, outward curving lines.
"I think one has just a fine time here, don't you?" she continued. "Momma, she came right with me, an' stopped a bit, till I was fixed up in a boarding-house. But she didn't find it agreeable, no sir. She missed America, an' presumed I would, too. When she was leaving, she said to me: 'EI'nor Martin, if you find you can't endure it among these Dutch, just you cable, and poppa he'll come along an' fetch you right home,' But I'm sure I haven't desired to quit, no, not once. I think it's just fine. But then I've gotten me so many friends I don't ever need to feel lonesome. Why, my friend Susie Fay, she says: 'Why, EI'nor, I guess you're acquainted with most every one in the place.' An' I reckon she's not far out. Anyways there ain't more than two Americans in the city I don't know. An' I see most all strangers that come. Say, are you acquainted with Miss Moses? She's from Chicago, an' resides in a boarding-house way down by the COLONNADEN. I got acquainted with her yesterday. She's a lovely lady, an', why, she's just as smart as she can be. Say, if you like, I'll invite her along, so you can get acquainted with her too."
Maurice expressed pleasure at the prospect; and Miss Martin continued to rattle on, with easy frankness, of herself, her family, and her friends. He listened vaguely, with half an ear, since it was only required of him to throw in an occasional word of assent. But suddenly his attention was arrested, and brought headlong back to what she was saying: in the string of names that fell from her tongue, he believed he had caught one he knew.
"Miss Dufrayer?" he queried.
"That's it," replied his companion. "Louise Dufrayer. Well, sir, as I was going on to remark, when first I was acquainted with her, she was just as sweet as she could be; yes, indeed; why, she was just dandy. But she hasn't behaved a bit pretty—I presume you heard tell of what took place here this fall?"
"Then you know Miss Dufrayer?"
"Yes, indeed. But I don't see her any more, an' I guess I don't want to. Not but what I've heard she feels pretty mean about it now—beg pardon?—how I know? Why, indeed, the other day, Schwarz come in an' told us how she's moping what she can—moping herself to death—if I recollect, those were his very words. Yes, indeed. She don't take lessons no more, I presume. I think she should go right away from this city. It ain't possible to be acquainted with her any more, for all she's so lonesome, an' one feels sort of bad about it, yes, indeed. But momma, the last thing she said to me was: 'Now EI'nor Martin, just keep your eyes open, an' don't get acquainted with people you might feel bad about afterwards.' An' I presume momma was right. I don't— Oh, say, do look at her, isn't she a peach?"—this, as her pretty friend, with Dove in tow, came gliding up to them. "Say, Susie Fay, are you acquainted with Mr. Guest?"
"MR. Guest. Pleased to know you," said Susie cordially; and Miss Martin was good-natured enough to skate off with Dove, leaving Maurice to her friend.
But afterwards, at the bench, as he was undoing Madeleine's skates, he overheard pretty Susie remark, without much care to moderate her voice: "Say, EI'nor Martin, that's the quietest sort of young man I've ever shown round a district. Why, seems to me, he couldn't say 'shoh.' Guess you shouldn't have left us, EI'nor."
And Miss Martin guessed so, too.