"And for a Treumann, social disgrace, any action that in the least soils our honour and makes us unable to hold up our heads, is worse than death."
"But I don't see any disgrace."
"No, no, there is none so long as facts are not distorted. It is quite simple—you need friends and I am willing to be your friend. That was how my son looked at it. He said 'Liebe Mama, she evidently needs friends and sympathy—why should you hesitate to make yourself of use? You must regard it as a good work.' You would like my son; his brother officers adore him."
"Really?" said Anna.
"He is so sensible, so reasonable; he is beloved and respected by the whole regiment. I will show you his photograph—ach, the trunks are still unstrapped."
"I'll go and send someone—but not Marie," said Anna, getting up quickly. She had no desire to see the photograph, and the son's way of looking at things had considerably astonished her. "It must be nearly supper time. Would you not rather lie down and let me send you something here? Your head must ache after crying so much. You have baptised our new life with tears. I hope it is a good omen."
"Oh, I will come down. You will do as you promised, will you not, and forbid the Penheim to gossip?"
"I shall tell the princess your wishes."
"Or, if she must gossip, let her tell the truth at least. If my son had not pressed me to come here I really do not think——"
Anna went slowly and meditatively down the passage to Fräulein Kuhräuber's room. For a moment she thought of omitting this last visit altogether; she was afraid lest the Fräulein should be in some unlooked-for and perplexing condition of mind. Discouraged? Oh no; she was surely not discouraged already. How had the word come into her head? She quickened her steps. When she reached the door she remembered the cup and the sugar-tongs. Perhaps something in the bedroom was already broken, and the Fräulein would be disclosed sitting in the ruins in tears, for she was unexpectedly large, and the contents of her room were frail. But then woe of that sort was as easily assuaged as broken furniture was mended. It was the more complicated grief of Frau von Treumann that she felt unable to soothe. As to that, she preferred not to think about it at present, and barricaded her thoughts against its image with that consoling sentence,Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner.It was a sentence she was fond of; but she had not expected that she would need its reassurance so soon.
She opened the door, and the puckers smoothed themselves out of her forehead at once, for here, at last, was peace. There had been no difficulties here with bells, and straps, and Marie. The trunks had been opened and unpacked without assistance; and when Anna came in the contents were all put away and Fräulein Kuhräuber, washed and combed and in her Sunday blouse, was sitting in an easy chair by the window absorbed in a book. Satisfaction was written broadly on her face; content was expressed by every lazy line of her attitude. When she saw Anna, she got up and made a curtsey and beamed. The beams were instantly reflected in Anna's face, and they beamed at each other.
"Well," said Anna, who felt perfectly at her ease with this member of her trio, "are you happy?"
Fräulein Kuhräuber blushed, and beamed more than ever. She was far less shy of Anna than she was of those two terribleadelige Damen, her travelling companions; but at no time had she had much conversation. Hers had been a ruminative existence, for its uncertainty but rarely disturbed her. Had she not an excellent digestion, and a fixed belief that the righteous, of whom she was one, would never be forsaken? And are not these the primary conditions of happiness? Indeed, if everything else is wanting, these two ingredients by themselves are sufficient for the concoction of a very palatable life.
"You have found an interesting book already?" Anna asked, pleased that the literature chosen with such care should have met with instant appreciation. She took it up to see what it was, but put it down again hastily, for it was the cookery book.
"I read much," observed Fräulein Kuhräuber.
"Yes?" said Anna, a flicker of hope reviving in her heart. Perhaps the cookery book was an accident.
"I know by heart more than a hundred recipes for sweet dishes alone."
"Really?" said Anna, the flicker expiring.
"So you can have an idea of the number of books I have read."
"Here are a great many more for you to read."
"Ach ja, ach ja," said Fräulein Kuhräuber, glancing doubtfully at the shelves; "but one must not waste too much time over it—there are other things in life. I read only useful books."
"Well, that is very praiseworthy," said Anna, smiling. "If you like cookery books, I must get you some more."
"How good you are—how very, very good!" said the Fräulein, gazing at the charming figure before her with heartfelt admiration and gratitude. "This beautiful room—I cannot look at it enough. I cannot believe it is really for me—for me to sleep in and be in whenever I choose. What have I done to deserve all this?"
What had she done, indeed? She had not even been unhappy, although of course she had had every opportunity of being so, sent from place to place, from one indignantHausfrauto another, ever since she left school. But Anna, persuaded that she had rescued her from depths of unspeakable despair, was overjoyed by this speech. "Don't talk about deserving," she said tenderly. "You have had such a life that if you were to be happy now without stopping once for the next fifty years it would only be just and right."
Fräulein Kuhräuber's approval of this sentiment was so entire that she seized Anna's hand and kissed it fervently. Anna laughed while this was going on, and her eyes grew brighter. She had not wanted gratitude, but now that it had come it was very encouraging after all, and very warming. She put one arm impulsively round the Fräulein's neck and kissed her, and this was practically the first kiss that lady had ever received, for the perfunctory embraces of reluctantly dutiful aunts can hardly be called by that pretty name.
"Now," said Anna, with a happy laugh, "we are going to be friends for ever. Come, let us go down. That was the supper bell."
And they went downstairs together, appearing in the doorway of the drawing-room arm in arm, as though they had loved each other for years.
"As though they were twins," muttered the baroness to Frau von Treumann, who shrugged one shoulder slightly by way of reply.
But in spite of this little outburst of gratitude and appreciation from Fräulein Kuhräuber, the first evening of the new life was a disappointment. The Fräulein, who entered the room so happily under the impression of that recent kiss, became awkward and uncomfortable the moment she caught sight of the others; lapsing, indeed, into a quite pitiful state of nervous flutter on being brought for the first time within the range of the princess's critical and unsympathetic eye. Her experience had not included princesses, and, as she made a series of agitated curtseys, deeming one altogether insufficient for so great a lady, she felt as though that cold eye were piercing her through easily, and had already discovered the inmost recess of her soul, where lay, so carefully hidden, the memory of the postman. Every time the princess looked at her, a sudden vivid consciousness of the postman flamed up within her, utterly refusing to be extinguished by the soothing recollection that he had been angelic for thirty years. That obviously experienced eye and those pursed lips upset her so completely that she made no remark whatever during the meal that followed, but sat next to Anna and ateLeberwurstin a kind of uneasy dream; and she ate it with a degree of emphasis so unusual among the polite and so disastrous to the peace of the ultra-fastidious that Anna felt there really was some slight excuse for the frequent and lengthy stares that came from the other end of the table. "Yet she is an immortal soul—what does it matter how she eatsLeberwurst?" said Anna to herself. "What do such trifles, such little mannerisms, really matter? I should indeed be a miserable creature if I let them annoy me." But she turned her head away, nevertheless, and talked assiduously to Letty.
There was no one else for her to talk to. Frau von Treumann and the baroness had seated themselves at once one on either side of the princess, and devoted their conversation entirely to her. In the drawing-room later on, the same thing happened,—the three German ladies clustering together near the sofa, and the three English being left somehow to themselves, except for Fräulein Kuhräuber, who clung to them. To avoid this division into what looked like hostile camps Anna pushed her chair to a place midway between the groups, and tried to join, though not very successfully, in the talk of each in turn. Outward calm prevailed in the room, subdued voices, the tranquillity of fancy-work, and the peace of albums; yet Anna could not avoid a chilled impression, a feeling as though each person present were distrustful of the others, and more or less on the defensive. Frau von Treumann, it is true, was graciousness itself to the princess, conversing with her constantly and amiably, and showing herself kind; but, on the other hand, the princess was hardly gracious to Frau von Treumann. An unbiassed observer would have said that she disapproved of Frau von Treumann, but was endeavouring to conceal her disapproval. She busied herself with her embroidery and talked as little as she could, receiving both the advances of Frau von Treumann and the attentions of the baroness with equal coldness.
As for the baroness, her doubts as to Anna's respectability were blown away completely and forever when, on opening the drawing-room door before supper, she had beheld no less a person than thegeboreneDettingen seated on the sofa. The baroness had spent her life in a remote and tiny provincial town, but she knew the great Dettingen and Penheim families well by name, and a princess in her opinion was a princess, an altogether precious and admirable creature, whatever she might choose to do. Her scruples, then, were set at rest, but her ice as far as Anna was concerned showed no signs of thawing. All her amiability and her efforts to produce a good impression were lavished on the princess, who besides being by birth and marriage the grandest person the baroness had yet met, spoke her own tongue properly, had no dimples, and did not try to stroke her hand. She looked on with mingled awe and irritation at the easy manner in which Frau von Treumann treated this great lady. It almost seemed as though she were patronising her. Really these Treumanns were a brazen-faced race; audacious East Prussian Junkers, who thought themselves as good as or better than the best. And this one was not even a true Treumann, but an Ilmas, and of the inferior Kadenstein branch; and the baroness's brother—that brother whose end was so abrupt—had been quartered once during the manœuvres at Kadenstein, and had told her that it was a wretched place, with a fowl-run that wanted mending within a few yards of the front door, and that, the door standing open all day long, he had frequently met fowls walking about in the hall and passages. Yet remembering the brother's story, and how there was no shadow of the sort resting at present on Frau von Treumann, though as she had a son there was no telling how long her shadowless state would last, she tried to ingratiate herself with that lady, who met her advances coolly, only warming into something like responsiveness when Fräulein Kuhräuber was in question.
Fräulein Kuhräuber sat behind Letty and Miss Leech, as far away from the others as she could. She had a stocking in her hand, but she did not knit. She never knitted if she could avoid it, and was conscious that from want of practice her needles moved more slowly than is usual—so slowly, indeed, as to be conspicuous. Letty showed her photographs and was very kind to her, instinctively perceiving that here was someone who was as uneasy under the tall lady's stares as she was herself. She privately thought her by far the best of the new arrivals, and wished she knew enough German to inquire into her views respecting Schiller; there was something in the Fräulein's looks and manner that made her think they would agree about Schiller.
Anna, too, ended by talking exclusively to this group. Her attempts to join in what the others were saying had been unsuccessful; and with a little twinge of disappointment, and a feeling of being for some unexplained reason curiously out of it, she turned to Fräulein Kuhräuber, and devoted herself more and more to her.
"They are inseparables already," remarked the baroness in a low voice to Frau von Treumann. "The Miss finds her congenial, it seems." She could not forgive those doors she had gone through last.
The princess looked up for a moment over the spectacles she wore when she worked, at Anna.
"Fräulein Kuhräuber makes an excellent foil," said Frau von Treumann. "Miss Estcourt looks quite ethereal next to her."
"Do you think her pretty?" asked the baroness.
"She is very distinguished-looking."
A servant came in at that moment and announced Dellwig's usual evening visit, and Anna got up and went out. They watched her as she walked down the long room, and when she had disappeared began to discuss her more at their ease, their rapid German being quite incomprehensible to Letty and Miss Leech.
"Where has she gone?" asked the baroness.
"She has gone to talk to her inspector," said the princess.
"Ach so," said the baroness.
"Ach so," said Frau von Treumann.
"Is the inspector young?" asked the baroness.
"Oh no, quite old," said the princess.
"These English are a strange race," said Frau von Treumann. "What German girl of that age would you find with so much energy and enterprise?"
"Is she so very young?" inquired the baroness, with a look of mild surprise.
"Why, she is plainly little more than a child," said Frau von Treumann.
"She is twenty-five," said the princess.
"Rather an old child," observed the baroness.
"She looks much younger. But twenty-five is surely young enough for this life, away from her own people," said Frau von Treumann.
"Yes—why does she lead it?" asked the baroness eagerly. "Can you tell us, Frau Prinzessin? Has she then quarrelled with all her friends?"
"Miss Estcourt has not told me so."
"But she must have quarrelled. Eccentric as the English are, there are limits to their eccentricity, and no one leaves home and friends and country without some good reason." And Frau von Treumann shook her head.
"She has quarrelled, I am sure," said the baroness.
"I think so too," said Frau von Treumann; "I thought so from the first. My son also thought so. You remember Karlchen, princess?"
"Perfectly."
"I discussed the question thoroughly with him, of course, as to whether I should come here or not. I confess I did not want to come. It was a great wrench, giving up everything, and going so far from my son. But after all one must not be selfish." And Frau von Treumann sighed and paused.
No one said anything, so she continued: "One feels, as one grows older, how great are the claims of others. And a widow with only one son can do so much, can make herself of so much use. That is what Karlchen said. When I hesitated—for I fear one does hesitate before inconvenience—he said, 'Liebste Mama, it would be a charity to go to the poor young lady. You who have always been the first to extend a sympathetic hand to the friendless, how is it that you hesitate now? Depend upon it, she has had differences at home and needs countenance and help. You have no encumbrances. You can go more easily than others. You must regard it as a good work.' And that decided me."
The princess let her work drop for a moment into her lap, and gazed over her spectacles at Frau von Treumann. "Wirklich?" she said in a voice of deep interest. "Those were your reasons?Aber herrlich."
"Yes, those were my reasons," replied Frau von Treumann, returning her gaze with pensive but steady eyes. "Those were my chief reasons. I regard it as a work of charity."
"But this is noble," murmured the princess, resuming her work.
"That is howIhave regarded it," put in the baroness. "I agree with you entirely, dear Frau von Treumann."
"I do not pretend to disguise," went on Frau von Treumann, "that it is an economy for me to live here, but poor as I have been since my dear husband's death—you remember Karl, princess?"
"Perfectly."
"Poor as I have been, I always had sufficient for my simple wants, and should not have dreamed of altering my life if Miss Estcourt's letters had not been so appealing."
"Ach—they were appealing?"
"Oh, a heart of stone would have been melted by them. And a widow's heart is not of stone, as you must know yourself. The orphan appealing to the widow—it was irresistible."
"Well, you see she is not by any means alone," said the princess cheerfully. "Here we are, five of us counting the little Letty, surrounding her. So you must not sacrifice yourself unnecessarily."
"Oh, I am not one of those who having put their hand to the plough——"
"But where is the plough, dear Frau von Treumann? You see there is, after all, no plough."
"Dear princess, you always were so literal."
"Ah, you used to reproach me with that in the old days, when you wrote poetry and read it to me and I was rude enough to ask if it meant anything. We did not think then that we should meet here, did we?"
"No, indeed. And I cannot tell you how much I admire your courage."
"My courage? What fine qualities you invest me with!"
"Miss Estcourt has told me how admirably you discharge your duties here. It is wonderful to me. You are an example to us all, and you make me feel ashamed of my own uselessness."
"Oh, you underrate yourself. People who leave everything to go and help others cannot talk of being useless. Yes, I look after her house for her, and I hope to look after her as well."
"After her? Is that one of your duties? Did she stipulate for personal supervision when she engaged you? How times are changed! When my Karl was alive, and we lived at Sommershof, I certainly would not have tolerated that my housekeeper should keep me in order as well as my house."
"The case was surely different, dear Frau von Treumann. Here is an unusually pretty young thing, with money. She will need all the protection I can give her, and it is a satisfaction to me to feel that I am here and able to give it."
"But she may any day turn round and request you to go."
"That of course may happen, but I hope it will not until she is safe."
"But do you think her so pretty?" put in the baroness wonderingly.
"Safe? What special dangers do you then apprehend for her?" asked Frau von Treumann with a look of amusement. "Dear princess, you always did take your duties so seriously. What a treasure you would have been to me in many ways. It is admirable. But do your duties really include watching over Miss Estcourt's heart? For I suppose you are thinking of her heart?"
"I am thinking of adventurers," said the princess. "Any young man with no money would naturally be delighted to secure this young lady and Kleinwalde. And those who instead of money have debts, would naturally be still more delighted." And the princess in her turn gazed pensively but steadily at Frau von Treumann. "No," she said, taking up her work again, "I was not thinking of her heart, but of the annoyance she might be put to. I do not fancy that her heart would easily be touched."
Anna came in at that moment for a paper she wanted, and heard the last words. "What," she said, smiling, as she unlocked the drawer of her writing-table and rummaged among the contents, "you are talking about hearts? You see it is true that women can't be together half an hour without getting on to subjects like that. If you were three men, now, you would talk of pigs." Then, a sudden recollection of Uncle Joachim coming into her mind, she added with conviction, "And pigs are better."
Nor was it till she had closed the door behind her that it struck her that when she came into the room both the princess and Frau von Treumann were looking preternaturally bland.
Axel Lohm was in the hall, having his coat taken from him by a servant.
"You here?" exclaimed Anna, holding out both hands. She was more than usually pleased to see him.
"Manske had a pile of letters for you, and could not get them to you because he has a pastors' conference at his house. I was there and saw the letters, and thought you might want them."
"Oh, I don't want them—at least, there is no hurry. But the letters are only an excuse. Now isn't it so?"
"An excuse?" he repeated, flushing.
"You want to see the new arrivals."
"Not in the very least."
"Oh, oh! But as you have come one minute too soon, and happened to meet me outside the door, your plan is spoilt. Are those the letters? What a pile!" Her face fell.
"But you are looking for nine more ladies. You want a wide choice. You have still the greater part of your work before you."
"I know. Why do you tell me that?"
"Because you do not seem pleased to get them."
"Oh yes, I am; but I am tired to-night, and the idea of nine more ladies makes me feel—feel sleepy."
She stood under the lamp, holding the packet loosely by its string and smiling up to him. There were shadows in her eyes, he thought, where he was used to seeing two cheerful little lights shining, and a faint ruefulness in the smile.
"Well, if you are tired you must go to bed," he said, in such a matter of fact tone that they both laughed.
"No, I mustn't," said Anna; "I am on my way to Herr Dellwig at this very moment. He's in there," she said, with a motion of her head towards the dining-room door. "Tell me," she added, lowering her voice, "have you got a brick-kiln at Lohm?"
"A brick-kiln? No. Why do you want to know?"
"But why haven't you got a brick-kiln?"
"Because there is nothing to make bricks with. Lohm is almost entirely sand."
"He says there is splendid clay here in one part, and wants to build one."
"Who? Dellwig?"
"Sh—sh."
"Your uncle would have built one long ago if there really had been clay. I must look at the place he means. I cannot remember any such place. And it is unlikely that it should be as he says. Pray do not agree to any propositions of the kind hastily."
"It would cost heaps to set it going, wouldn't it?"
"Yes, and probably bring in nothing at all."
"But he tries to make out that it would be quite cheap. He says the timber could all be got out of the forest. I can't bear the thought of cutting down a lot of trees."
"If you can't bear the thought of anything he proposes, then simply refuse to consider it."
"But he talks and talks till it really seems that he is right. He told me just now that it would double the value of the estate."
"I don't believe it."
"If I made bricks, according to him I could take in twice as many poor ladies."
"I believe you will be happier with fewer ladies and no bricks," said Axel with great positiveness.
Anna stood thinking. Her eyes were fixed on the tip of the finger she had passed through the loop of string that tied the letters together, and she watched it as the packet twisted round and round and pinched it redder and redder. "I suppose you never wanted to be a woman," she said, considering this phenomenon with apparent interest.
Axel laughed.
"The mere question makes you laugh," she said, looking up quickly. "I never heard of a man who did want to. But lots of women would give anything to be men."
"And you are one of them?"
"Yes."
He laughed again.
"You think I would make a queer little man?" she said, laughing too; but her face became sober immediately, and with a glance at the shut dining-room door she continued: "It is so horrid to feel weak. My sister Susie says I am very obstinate. Perhaps I was with her, but different people have different effects on one." She sank her voice to a whisper, and looked at him anxiously. "You can't think what aneffortit is to me to say No to that man."
"What, to Dellwig?"
"Sh—sh."
"But if that is how you feel, my dear Miss Estcourt, it is very evident that the man must go."
"How easy it is to say that! Pray, who is to tell him to go?"
"I will, if you wish."
"If you were a woman, do you suppose you would be able to turn out an old servant who has worked here so many years?"
"Yes, I am sure I would, if I felt that he was getting beyond my control."
"No, you wouldn't. All sorts of things would stop you. You would remember that your uncle specially told you to keep him on, that he has been here ages, that he was faithful and devoted——"
"I do not believe there was much devotion."
"Oh yes, there was. The first evening he cried about dear Uncle Joachim."
"He cried?" repeated Axel incredulously.
"He did indeed."
"It was about something else, then."
"No, he really cried about Uncle Joachim. He really loved him."
Axel looked profoundly unconvinced.
"But after all those are not the real reasons," said Anna; "they ought to be, but they're not. The simple truth is that I am a coward, and I am frightened—dreadfully frightened—of possible scenes." And she looked at him and laughed ruefully. "There—you see what it is to be a woman. If I were a man, how easy things would be. Please consider the mortification of knowing that if he persuades long enough I shall give in, against my better judgment. He has the strongest will I think I ever came across."
"But you have not yet given in, I hope, on any point of importance?"
"Up to now I have managed to say No to everything I don't want to do. But you would laugh if you knew what those Nos cost me. Why cannot the place go on as it was? I am perfectly satisfied. But hardly a day passes without some wonderful new plan being laid before me, and he talks—oh, how he talks! I believe he would convince even you."
"The man is quite beyond your control," said Axel in a voice of anger; and voices of anger commonly being loud voices, this one produced the effect of three doors being simultaneously opened: the door leading to the servants' quarters, through which Marie looked and vanished again, retreating to the kitchen to talk prophetically of weddings; the dining-room door, behind which Dellwig had grown more and more impatient at being kept waiting so long; and the drawing-room door, on the other side of which the baroness had been lingering for some moments, desiring to go upstairs for her scissors, but hesitating to interrupt Anna's business with the inspector, whose voice she thought it was that she heard.
The baroness shut her door again immediately. "Aha—the admirer!" she said to herself; and went back quickly to her seat. "The Miss is talking to ajünge Herr," she announced, her eyes wider open than ever.
"Ajünge Herr?" echoed Frau von Treumann. "I thought the inspector was old?"
"It must be Axel Lohm," said the princess, not raising her eyes from her work. "He often comes in."
"He comes courting, evidently," said the baroness with a sub-acid smile.
"It has not been evident to me," said the princess coldly.
"I thought it looked like it," said the baroness, with more meekness.
"Is that the Lohm who was engaged to one of the Kiederfels girls some years ago?" asked Frau von Treumann.
"Yes, and she died."
"But did he not marry soon afterwards? I heard he married."
"That was the second brother. This one is the eldest, and lives next to us, and is single."
Frau von Treumann was silent for a moment. Then she said blandly, "Now confess, princess, thatheis the perilous person from whom you think it necessary to defend Miss Estcourt."
"Oh no," said the princess with equal blandness; "I have no fears about him."
"What, is he too possessed of an invulnerable heart?"
"I know nothing of his heart. I said, I believe, adventurers. And no one could call Axel Lohm an adventurer. I was thinking of men who have run through all their own and all their relations' money in betting and gambling, and who want a wife who will pay their debts."
"Ach so," said Frau von Treumann with perfect urbanity. And if this talk about protecting Miss Estcourt from adventurers in a place where there were apparently no human beings of any kind, but only trees and marshes, might seem to a bystander to be foolishness, to the speakers it was luminousness itself, and in no way increased their love for each other.
Meanwhile Dellwig, looking through the door and seeing Lohm, brought his heels together and bowed with his customary exaggeration. "I beg a thousand times pardon," he said; "I thought the gracious Miss was engaged and would not return, and I was about to go home."
"I have found the paper, and am coming," said Anna coldly. "Well, good-night," she added in English, holding out her hand to Axel.
"If you will allow me, I should like to pay my respects to Princess Ludwig before I go," he said, thinking thus to see her later.
"Ah! wasn't I right?" she said, smiling. "You are determined to look at the new arrivals. How can a man be so inquisitive? But I will say good-night all the same. I shall be ages with Herr Dellwig, and shall not see you again." She shook hands with him, and went into the dining-room, Dellwig standing aside with deep respect to let her pass. But she turned to say something to him as he shut the door, and Axel caught the expression of her face, the intense boredom on it, the profound distrust of self; and he went in to the princess with an unusually severe and determined look on his own.
Dellwig went home that night in a savage mood. "That young man," he said to his wife, flinging his hat and coat on to a chair and himself on to a sofa, "is thrusting himself more and more into our affairs."
"That Lohm?" she asked, rolling up her work preparatory to fetching his evening drink.
"I had almost got the Miss to consent to the brick-kiln. She was quite reasonable, and went out to get the plan I had made. Then she met him—he is always hanging about."
"And then?" inquired Frau Dell wig eagerly.
"Pah—this petticoat government—having to beg and pray for the smallest concession—it makes an honest man sick."
"She will not consent?"
"She came back as obstinate as a mule. It all had to be gone into again from the beginning."
"She will not consent?"
"She said Lohm would look at the place and advise her."
"Aber so was!" cried Frau Dellwig, crimson with wrath. "Advise her? Did you not tell her that you were her adviser?"
"You may be sure I did. I told her plainly enough, I fancy, that Lohm had nothing to say here, and that her uncle had always listened to me. She sat without speaking, as she generally does, not even looking at me—I never can be sure that she is even listening."
"And then?"
"I asked her at last if she had lost confidence in me."
"And then?"
"She saidoh nein, in her affected foreign way—in the sort of voice that might just as well meanoh ja." And he imitated, with great bitterness, Anna's way of speaking German. "Mark my words, Frau, she is as weak as water for all her obstinacy, and the last person who talks to her can always bring her round."
"Then you must be the last person."
"If it were not for that prig Lohm, that interfering ass, that incomparable rhinoceros——"
"He wants to marry her, of course."
"If he marries her——" Dellwig stopped short, and stared gloomily at his muddy boots.
"If he marries her——" repeated his wife; but she too stopped short. They both knew well enough what would happen to them if he married her.
The building of the brick-kiln had come to be a point of honour with the Dellwigs. Ever since Anna's arrival, their friends the neighbouring farmers and inspectors had been congratulating them on their complete emancipation from all manner of control; for of course a young ignorant lady would leave the administration of her estate entirely in her inspector's hands, confining her activities, as became a lady of birth, to paying the bills. Dellwig had not doubted that this would be so, and had boasted loudly and continually of the different plans he had made and was going to carry out. The estate of which he was now practically master was to become renowned in the province for its enterprise and the extent, in every direction, of its operations. The brick-kiln was a long-cherished scheme. His oldest friend and rival, the head inspector of a place on the other side of Stralsund, had one, and had constantly urged him to have one too; but old Joachim, without illusions as to the quality of the clay, and by no manner of means to be talked into disbelieving the evidence of his own eyes, would not hear of it, and Dellwig felt there was nothing to be done in the face of that curt refusal. The friend, triumphing in his own brick-kiln and his own more pliable master, jeered, dug him in the ribs at the Sunday gatherings, and talked of dependence, obedience, and restricted powers. Such friends are difficult to endure with composure; and Dellwig, and still less his wife, for many months past had hardly been able to bear the word "brick" mentioned in their presence. When Anna appeared on the scene, so young, so foreign, and so obviously foolish, Dellwig, certain now of success, told his friend on the very first Sunday night that the brick-kiln was now a mere matter of weeks. Always a boaster, he could not resist boasting a little too soon. Besides, he felt very sure; and the friend, too, had taken it for granted, when he heard of the impending young mistress, that the thing was as good as built.
That was in March. It was now the end of April, and every Sunday the friend inquired when the building was to be begun, and every Sunday Dellwig said it would begin when the days grew longer. The days had grown longer, would have grown in a few weeks to their longest, as the friend repeatedly pointed out, and still nothing had been done. To the many people who do not care what their neighbours think of them, the torments of the two Dellwigs because of the unbuilt brick-kiln will be incomprehensible. Yet these torments were so acute that in the weaker moments immediately preceding meals they both felt that it would almost be better to leave Kleinwalde than to stay and endure them; indeed, before dinner, or during wakeful nights, Frau Dellwig was convinced that it would be better to die outright. The good opinion of their neighbours—more exactly, the envy of their neighbours—was to them the very breath of their nostrils. In their set they must be the first, the undisputedly luckiest, cleverest, and best off. Any position less mighty would be unbearable. And since Anna came there had been nothing but humiliations. First the dinner to the Manskes, from which they had been excluded—Frau Dellwig grew hot all over at the recollection of the Sunday gathering succeeding it; then the renovation of theSchlosswithout the least reference to them, without the smallest asking for advice or help; then the frequent communications with the pastor, putting him quite out of his proper position, the confidence placed in him, the ridiculous respect shown him, his connection with the mad charitable scheme; and now, most dreadful of all, this obstinacy in regard to the brick-kiln. It was becoming clear that they were fairly on the way to being pitied by the neighbours. Pitied! Horrid thought. The great thing in life was to be so situated that you can pity others. But to be pitied yourself? Oh, thrice-accursed folly of old Joachim, to leave Kleinwalde to a woman! Frau Dellwig could not sleep that night for hating Anna. She lay awake staring into the darkness with hot eyes, and hating her with a heartiness that would have petrified that unconscious young woman as she sat about a stone's throw off in her bedroom, motionless in the chair into which she had dropped on first coming upstairs, too tired even to undress, after her long struggle with Frau Dellwig's husband. "TheEngländerinwill ruin us!" cried Frau Dellwig suddenly, unable to hate in silence any longer.
"Wie? Was?" exclaimed Dellwig, who had dozed off, and was startled.
"She will—she will!" cried his wife.
"Will what? Ruin us? TheEngländerin?Ach was—Unsinn.Shecan 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.
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."
"IfIhad 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 ofthat."
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.Henever 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."
"Heisrather 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.
"Whatisshe 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.
"Unverschämt," was the baroness's mental comment.
Anna put on her hat and went out to think it over. Fräulein Kuhräuber 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 Fräulein Kuhräuber 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. Fräulein Kuhräuber 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 meanyreason 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 wouldlikeher brother to cheat and then shoot himself? Orlikeher 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 thepraktischeside 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."