It was not long before the community was talking of the change in Hilda, the abrupt change to a gentle, serious, silent woman, the sparkle gone from her eyes, pathos there in its stead. But not even her own family knew her secret.
"When is Mr. Feuerstein coming again?" asked her father when a week had passed.
"I don't know just when. Soon," answered Hilda, in a tone which made it impossible for such a man as he to inquire further.
Sophie brought all her cunning to bear in her effort to get at the facts. But Hilda evaded her hints and avoided her traps. After much thinking she decided that Mr. Feuerstein had probably gone for good, that Hilda was hoping when there was nothing to hope for, and that her own affairs were suffering from the cessation of action. She was in the mood to entertain the basest suggestions her craft could put forward for making marriage between Hilda and Otto impossible. But she had not yet reached the stage at which overt acts are deliberately planned upon the surface of the mind.
One of her girl friends ran in to gossip with her late in the afternoon of the eighth day after Mr. Feuerstein's "parting scene" in Tompkins Square. The talk soon drifted to Hilda, whom the other girl did not like.
"I wonder what's become of that lover of hers—that tall fellow from up town?" asked Miss Hunneker.
"I don't know," replied Sophie in a strained, nervous manner. "I always hated to see Hilda go with him. No good ever comes of that sort of thing."
"I supposed she was going to marry him."
Sophie became very uneasy indeed. "It don't often turn out that way," she said in a voice that was evidently concealing something—apparently an ugly rent in the character of her friend.
Walpurga Hunneker opened her eyes wide. "You don't mean—" she exclaimed. And, as Sophie looked still more confused,
"Well, I THOUGHT so! Gracious! Her pride must have had a fall. No wonder she looks so disturbed."
"Poor Hilda!" said Sophie mournfully. Then she looked at Walpurga in a frightened way as if she had been betrayed into saying too much.
Walpurga spent a busy evening among her confidantes, with the result that the next day the neighborhood was agitated by gossip—insinuations that grew bolder and bolder, that had sprung from nowhere, but pointed to Hilda's sad face as proof of their truth. And on the third day they had reached Otto's mother. Not a detail was lacking—even the scene between Hilda and her father was one of the several startling climaxes of the tale. Mrs. Heilig had been bitterly resentful of Hilda's treatment of her son, and she accepted the story—it was in such perfect harmony with her expectations from the moment she heard of Mr. Feuerstein. In the evening, when he came home from the shop, she told him.
"There isn't a word of truth in it, mother," he said. "I don't care who told you, it's a lie."
"Your love makes you blind," answered the mother. "But I can see that her vanity has led her just where vanity always leads—to destruction."
"Who told you?" he demanded.
Mrs. Heilig gave him the names of several women. "It is known to all," she said.
His impulse was to rush out and trace down the lie to its author. But he soon realized the folly of such an attempt. He would only aggravate the gossip and the scandal, give the scandal-mongers a new chapter for their story. Yet he could not rest without doing something.
He went to Hilda—she had been most friendly toward him since the day he helped her with her lover. He asked her to walk with him in the Square. When they were alone, he began: "Hilda, you believe I'm your friend, don't you?"
She looked as if she feared he were about to reopen the old subject.
"No—I'm not going to worry you," he said in answer to the look. "I mean just friend."
"I know you are, Otto," she replied with tears in her eyes. "You are indeed my friend. I've counted on you ever since you—ever since that Sunday."
"Then you won't think wrong of me if I ask you a question? You'll know I wouldn't, if I didn't have a good reason, even though I can't explain?"
"Yes—what is it?"
"Hilda, is—is Mr. Feuerstein coming back?"
Hilda flushed. "Yes, Otto," she said. "I haven't spoken to any one about it, but I can trust you. He's had trouble and it has called him away. But he told me he'd come back." She looked at him appealingly. "You know that I love him, Otto. Some day you will like him, will see what a noble man he is."
"When is he coming back?"
"I didn't ask him. I knew he'd come as soon as he could. I wouldn't pry into his affairs."
"Then you don't know why he went or when he's coming?"
"I trust him, just as you'll want a girl to trust you some day when you love her."
As soon as he could leave her, he went up town, straight to the German Theater. In the box-office sat a young man with hair precisely parted in the middle and sleeked down in two whirls brought low on his forehead.
"I'd like to get Mr. Feuerstein's address," said Otto.
"That dead-beat?" the young man replied contemptuously. "I suppose he got into you like he did into every one else. Yes, you can have his address. And give him one for me when you catch him. He did me out of ten dollars."
Otto went on to the boarding-house in East Sixteenth Street. No, Mr. Feuerstein was not in and it was not known when he would return—he was very uncertain. Otto went to Stuyvesant Square and seated himself where he could see the stoop of the boarding-house. An hour, two hours, two hours and a half passed, and then his patient attitude changed abruptly to action. He saw the soft light hat and the yellow bush coming toward him. Mr. Feuerstein paled slightly as he recognized Otto.
"I'm not going to hurt you," said Otto in a tone which Mr. Feuerstein wished he had the physical strength to punish. "Sit down here—I've got something to say to you."
"I'm in a great hurry. Really, you'll have to come again."
But Otto's look won. Mr. Feuerstein hesitated, seated himself.
"I want to tell you," said Otto quietly, "that as the result of your going away so suddenly and not coming back a wicked lying story is going round about Hilda. She does not know it yet, but it won't be long before something will be said—maybe publicly. And it will break her heart."
"I can't discuss her with you," said Mr. Feuerstein. "Doubtless you mean well. I'm obliged to you for coming. I'll see." He rose.
"Is that all?" said Otto.
"What more can I say?"
"But what are you going to DO?"
"I don't see how I can prevent a lot of ignorant people from gossiping."
"Then you're not going straight down there? You're not going to do what a man'd do if he had the decency of a dog?"
"You are insulting! But because I believe you mean well, I shall tell you that it is impossible for me to go for several days at least. As soon as I honorably can, I shall come and the scandal will vanish like smoke."
Otto let him go. "I mustn't thrash him, and I can't compel him to be a man." He returned to the German Theater; he must learn all he could about this Feuerstein.
"Did you see him?" asked the ticket-seller.
"Yes, but I didn't get anything."
Otto looked so down that the ticket-seller was moved to pity, to generosity.
"Well, I'll give you a tip. Keep after him; keep your eye on him. He's got a rich father-in-law."
Otto leaned heavily on the sill of the little window. "Father-in-law?" A sickening suspicion peered into his mind.
"He was full the other night and he told one of our people he was married to a rich man's daughter."
"Was the name Brauner?" asked Otto.
"He didn't name any names. But—let me think—they say it's a daughter of a brewer, away up town. Yes, Ganser—I think that was the name."
"Oh!" Otto's face brightened. "Where is Ganser's place?" he asked.
"I don't know—look in the directory. But the tip is to wait a few days. He hasn't got hold of any of the old man's money yet—there's some hitch. There'll be plenty for all when it comes, so you needn't fret."
Otto went to the brewery, but Peter had gone home. Otto went on to the house and Peter came down to the brilliant parlor, where the battle of hostile shades and colors was raging with undiminished fury. In answer to Peter's look of inquiry, he said: "I came about your son-in-law, Mr. Feuerstein."
"Who are you? Who told you?" asked Peter, wilting into a chair.
"They told me at the theater."
Peter gave a sort of groan. "It's out!" he cried, throwing up his thick, short arms. "Everybody knows!"
Shrewd Otto saw the opening. "I don't think so," he replied, "at least not yet. He has a bad reputation—I see you know that already. But it's nothing to what he will have when it comes out that he's been trying to marry a young lady down town since he married your daughter."
"But it mustn't come out!" exclaimed Ganser. "I won't have it. This scandal has disgraced me enough."
"That's what I came to see you about," said Otto. "The young lady and her friends don't know about his marriage. It isn't necessary that any of them should know, except her. But she must be put on her guard. He might induce her to run away with him."
"Rindsvieh!" muttered Ganser, his hair and whiskers bristling. "Dreck!"
"I want to ask you, as a man and a father, to see that this young lady is warned. She'll be anxious enough to keep quiet. If you do, there won't be any scandal—at least not from there."
"I'll go down and warn her. Where is she? I'll speak to her father."
"And have him make a row? No, there's only one way. Send your daughter to her."
"But you don't know my daughter. She's a born—" Just in time Ganser remembered that he was talking to a stranger and talking about his daughter. "She wouldn't do it right," he finished.
"She can go in and see the young lady alone and come out without speaking to anybody else. I'll promise you there'll be no risk."
Ganser thought it over and decided to take Otto's advice. They discussed Mr. Feuerstein for several minutes, and when Otto left, Ganser followed him part of the way down the stoop, shaking hands with him. It was a profound pleasure to the brewer to be able to speak his mind on the subject of his son-in-law to an intelligent, appreciative person. He talked nothing else to his wife and Lena, but he had the feeling that he might as well talk aloud to himself.
After supper—the Gansers still had supper in the evening, their fashionable progress in that direction having reached only the stage at which dinner is called luncheon—he put Lena into the carriage and they drove to Avenue A. On the way he told her exactly what to say and do. He stayed in the carriage. "Be quick," he said, "and no foolishness!"
Lena, swelling and rustling with finery and homelier than before her troubles, little though they disturbed her, marched into the shop and up to the end counter, where Hilda was standing.
"You are Miss Hilda Brauner?" she said. "I want to see you alone."
Hilda looked her surprise but showed Lena into the living-room, which happened to be vacant. Lena could not begin, so intent was she upon examining her rival. "How plain she's dressed," she thought, "and how thin and black she is!" But it was in vain; she could not deceive her rising jealousy. It made her forget her father's instructions, forget that she was supposed to hate Feuerstein and was getting rid of him.
"I am Mrs. Carl Feuerstein," she cried, her face red and her voice shrill with anger and excitement. "And I want you to stop flirting with my husband!"
Hilda stood petrified. Lena caught sight of a photograph on the mantelpiece behind Hilda. She gave a scream of fury and darted for it. "How dare you!" she shrieked. "You impudent THING!" She snatched the frame, tore it away from the photograph and flung it upon the floor. As she gazed at that hair like a halo of light, at those romantic features and upturned eyes, she fell to crying and kissing them.
Hilda slowly turned and watched the spectacle—the swollen, pudgy face, tear-stained, silly, ugly, the tears and kisses falling upon the likeness of HER lover. She suddenly sprang at Lena, her face like a thunder-storm, her black brows straight and her great eyes flashing. "You lie!" she exclaimed. And she tore the photograph from Lena's hands and clasped it to her bosom.
Lena shrank in physical fear from this aroused lioness. "He's my husband," she whined. "You haven't got any right to his picture."
"You lie!" repeated Hilda, throwing back her head.
"It's the truth," said Lena, beginning to cry. "I swear to God it's so. You can ask pa if it ain't. He's Mr. Ganser, the brewer."
"Who sent you here to lie about him to me?"
"Oh, you needn't put on. You knew he was married. I don't wonder you're mad. He's MY husband, while he's only been making a fool of YOU. You haven't got any shame." Lena's eyes were on the photograph again and her jealousy over-balanced fear. She laughed tauntingly.
"Of course you're trying to brazen it out. Give me that picture! He's my husband!"
Just then Ganser appeared in the doorway—he did not trust his daughter and had followed her when he thought she was staying too long. At sight of him she began to weep again. "She won't believe me, pa," she said. "Look at her standing there hugging his picture."
Ganser scowled at his daughter and addressed himself to Hilda, "It's true, Miss," he said. "The man is a scoundrel. I sent my daughter to warn you."
Hilda looked at him haughtily. "I don't know you," she said, "and I do know him. I don't know why you've come here to slander him. But I do know that I'd trust him against the whole world." She glanced from father to daughter. "You haven't done him any harm and you might as well go."
Peter eyed her in disgust. "You're as big a fool as my Lena," he said. "Come on, Lena."
As Lena was leaving the room, she gave Hilda a malignant glance. "He's MY husband," she said spitefully, "and you're—well, I wouldn't want to say what you are."
"Move!" shouted Ganser, pushing her out of the room. His parting shot at Hilda was: "Ask him."
Hilda, still holding the photograph, stared at the doorway through which they had disappeared. "You lie!" she repeated, as if they were still there. Then again, a little catch in her voice: "You lie!" And after a longer interval, a third time, with a sob in her throat: "You lie! I know you lie!" She sat at the table and held the photograph before her. She kissed it passionately, gazed long at it, seeing in those bold handsome features all that her heart's love believed of him.
Suddenly she started up, went rapidly down the side hall and out into the street. Battling with her doubts, denouncing herself as disloyal to him, she hurried up the Avenue and across the Square and on until she came to his lodgings. When she asked for him the maid opened the parlor door and called through the crack: "Mr. Feuerstein, a lady wants to see you."
As the maid disappeared down the basement stairs, Mr. Feuerstein appeared. At sight of her he started back. "Hilda!" he exclaimed theatrically, and frowned.
"Don't be angry with me," she said humbly. "I wouldn't have come, only—"
"You must go at once!" His tone was abrupt, irritated.
"Yes—I will. I just wanted to warn you—" She raised her eyes appealingly toward his face. "Two people came to see me to-night—Mr. Ganser and his daughter—"
Feuerstein fell back a step and she saw that he was shaking and that his face had become greenish white. "It's false!" he blustered. "False as hell!—"
And she knew that it was true.
She continued to look at him and he did not try to meet her eyes. "What did they tell you?" he said, after a long pause, remembering that he had denied before a charge had been made.
She was looking away from him now. She seemed not to have heard him. "I must go," she murmured, and began slowly to descend the stoop.
He followed her, laid his hand upon her arm. "Hilda!" he pleaded. "Let me explain!"
"Don't touch me!" She snatched her arm away from him. She ran down the rest of the steps and fled along the street. She kept close to the shadow of the houses. She went through Avenue A with hanging head, feeling that the eyes of all were upon her, condemning, scorning. She hid herself in her little room, locking the door. Down beside the bed she sank and buried her face in the covers. And there she lay, racked with the pain of her gaping wounds—wounds to love, to trust, to pride, to self-respect. "Oh, God, let me die," she moaned. "I can't ever look anybody in the face again."
A few days later Peter Ganser appeared before Beck, triumph flaunting from his stupid features. Beck instantly scented bad news.
"Stop the case," said Peter with a vulgar insolence that grated upon the lawyer. "It's no good."
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Ganser. I don't follow you."
"But I follow myself. Stop the case. I pay you off now."
"You can't deal with courts as you can with your employees, Mr. Ganser. There are legal forms to be gone through. Of course, if you're reconciled to your son-in-law, why—"
Peter laughed. "Son-in-law! That scoundrel—he's a bigamist. I got the proofs from Germany this morning."
Beck became blue round the edges of his mouth and his eyes snapped. "So you've been taking steps in this case without consulting me, Mr. Ganser?"
"I don't trust lawyers. Anyway, what I hire you for? To try my case. It's none of your business what I do outside. I pay you off, and I don't pay for any dirty works I don't get." He had wrought himself into a fury. Experience had taught him that that was the best mood in which to conduct an argument about money.
"We'll send you your bill," said Beck, in a huge, calm rage against this dull man who had outwitted him. "If you wish to make a scene, will you kindly go elsewhere?"
"I want to pay you off—right away quick. I think you and Loeb in cahoots. My detective, he says you both must have known about Feuerstein. He says you two were partners and knew his record. I'll expose you, if you don't settle now. Give me my bill."
"It is impossible." Beck's tone was mild and persuasive. "All the items are not in."
Ganser took out a roll of notes. "I pay you five hundred dollars. Take it or fight. I want a full receipt. I discharge you now."
"My dear sir, we do not give our services for any such sum as that."
"Yes you do. And you don't get a cent more. If I go out of here without my full receipt, I fight. I expose you, you swindler."
Peter was shouting at the top of his lusty lungs. Beck wrote a receipt and handed it to him. Peter read it and handed it back. "I'm not as big a fool as I look," he said. "That ain't a full receipt."
Beck wrote again. "Anything to get you out of the office," he said, as he tossed the five hundred dollars into a drawer. "And when your family gets you into trouble again—"
Peter snorted. "Shut up!" he shouted, banging his fist on the desk. "And don't you tell the papers. If anything come out, I expose you. My lawyer, Mr. Windisch, say he can have you put out of court." And Peter bustled and slammed his way out.
Beck telephoned Loeb, and they took lunch together. "Ganser has found out about Feuerstein's wife," was Beck's opening remark.
Loeb drew his lip back over his teeth.
"I wish I'd known it two hours sooner. I let Feuerstein have ten dollars more."
"More?"
"More. He's had ninety-five on account. I relied on you to handle the brewer."
"And we're out our expenses in getting ready for trial."
"Well—you'll send Ganser a heavy bill."
Beck shook his head dismally. "That's the worst of it. He called me a swindler, said he'd show that you and I were in a conspiracy, and dared me to send him a bill. And in the circumstances I don't think I will."
Loeb gave Beck a long and searching look which Beck bore without flinching.
"No, I don't think you will send him a bill," said Loeb slowly. "But how much did he pay you?"
"Not a cent—nothing but insults."
Loeb finished his luncheon in silence. But he and Beck separated on the friendliest terms. Loeb was too practical a philosopher to hate another man for doing that which he would have done himself if he had had the chance. At his office he told a clerk to send Feuerstein a note, asking him to call the next morning. When Feuerstein came into the anteroom the gimlet-eyed office boy disappeared through one of the doors in the partition and reappeared after a longer absence than usual. He looked at Feuerstein with a cynical, contemptuous smile in his eyes.
"Mr. Loeb asks me to tell you," he said, "with his compliments, that you are a bigamist and a swindler, and that if you ever show your face here again he'll have you locked up."
Feuerstein staggered and paled—there was no staginess in his manner. Then without a word he slunk away. He had not gone far up Center Street before a hand was laid upon his shoulder from behind. He stopped as if he had been shot; he shivered; he slowly, and with a look of fascinated horror, turned to see whose hand had arrested him.
He was looking into the laughing face of a man who was obviously a detective.
"You don't seem glad to see me, old boy," said the detective with contemptuous familiarity.
"I don't know you, sir." Feuerstein made a miserable attempt at haughtiness.
"Of course you don't. But I know YOU—all about you. Come in here and let's sit down a minute."
They went into a saloon and the detective ordered two glasses of beer. "Now listen to me, young fellow," he said.
"You're played out in this town. You've got to get a move on you, see? We've been looking you up, and you're wanted for bigamy. But if you clear out, you won't be followed. You've got to leave today, understand? If you're here to-morrow morning, up the road you go." The detective winked and waggled his thumb meaningly in a northerly direction.
Feuerstein was utterly crushed. He gulped down the beer and sat wiping the sweat from his face. "I have done nothing," he protested in tragic tones. "Why am I persecuted—I, poor, friendless, helpless?"
"Pity about you," said the detective.
"You'd better go west and start again. Why not try honest work? It's not so bad, they say, once you get broke in." He rose and shook hands with Feuerstein. "So long," he said. "Good luck! Don't forget!" And again he winked and waggled his thumb in the direction of the penitentiary.
Feuerstein went to his lodgings, put on all the clothes he could wear without danger of attracting his landlady's attention, filled his pockets and the crown of his hat with small articles, and fled to Hoboken.
Hilda had not spent her nineteen years in the glare of the Spartan publicity in which the masses live without establishing a character. Just as she knew all the good points and bad in all the people of that community, so they knew all hers, and therefore knew what it was possible for her to do and what impossible. And if a baseless lie is swift of foot where everybody minutely scrutinizes everybody else, it is also scant of breath. Sophie's scandal soon dwindled to a whisper and expired, and the kindlier and probable explanation of Hilda's wan face and downcast eyes was generally accepted.
Her code of morals and her method of dealing with moral questions were those of all the people about her—strict, severe, primitive. Feuerstein was a cheat, a traitor. She cast him out of her heart—cast him out at once and utterly and for ever. She could think of him only with shame. And it seemed to her that she was herself no longer pure—she had touched pitch; how could she be undefiled?
She accepted these conclusions and went about her work, too busy to indulge in hysteria of remorse, repining, self-examination.
She avoided Otto, taking care not to be left alone with him when he called on Sundays, and putting Sophie between him and her when he came up to them in the Square. But Otto was awaiting his chance, and when it came, plunged boldly into his heart-subject and floundered bravely about. "I don't like to see you so sad, Hilda. Isn't there any chance for me? Can't things be as they used to be?"
Hilda shook her head sadly. "I'm never going to marry," she said. "You must find some one else."
"It's you or nobody. I said that when we were in school together and—I'll stick to it." His eyes confirmed his words.
"You mustn't, Otto. You make me feel as if I were spoiling your life. And if you knew, you wouldn't want to marry me."
"I don't care. I always have, and I always will."
"I suppose I ought to tell you," she said, half to herself. She turned to him suddenly, and, with flushed cheeks and eyes that shifted, burst out: "Otto, he was a married man!"
"But you didn't know."
"It doesn't change the way I feel. You might—any man might—throw it up to me. And sooner or later, everybody'll know. No man would want a girl that had had a scandal like that on her."
"I would," he said, "and I do. And it isn't a scandal."
Some one joined them and he had no chance to continue until the following Sunday, when Heiligs and Brauners went together to the Bronx for a half-holiday. They could not set out until their shops closed, at half-past twelve, and they had to be back at five to reopen for the Sunday supper customers. They lunched under the trees in the yard of a German inn, and a merry party they were.
Hilda forgot to keep up her pretense that her healing wounds were not healing and never would heal. She teased Otto and even flirted with him. This elevated her father and his mother to hilarity. They were two very sensible young-old people, with a keen sense of humor—the experience of age added to the simplicity and gaiety of youth.
You would have paused to admire and envy had you passed that way and looked in under the trees, as they clinked glasses and called one to another and went off into gales of mirth over nothing at all. What laughter is so gay as laughter at nothing at all? Any one must laugh when there is something to laugh at; but to laugh just because one must have an outlet for bubbling spirits there's the test of happiness!
After luncheon they wandered into the woods and soon Otto and Hilda found themselves alone, seated by a little waterfall, which in a quiet, sentimental voice suggested that low tones were the proper tones to use in that place.
"We've known each other always, Hilda," said Otto. "And we know all about each other. Why not—dear?"
She did not speak for several minutes.
"You know I haven't any heart to give you," she answered at last.
Otto did not know anything of the kind, but he knew she thought so, and he was too intelligent to dispute, when time would settle the question—and, he felt sure, would settle it right. So he reached out and took her hand and said: "I'll risk that."
And they sat watching the waterfall and listening to it, and they were happy in a serious, tranquil way. It filled him with awe to think that he had at last won her. As for her, she was looking forward, without illusions, without regrets, to a life of work and content beside this strong, loyal, manly man who protested little, but never failed her or any one else.
On the way home in the train she told her mother, and her mother told her father. He, then and there, to the great delight and pleasure of the others in the car, rose up and embraced and kissed first his daughter, then Otto and then Otto's mother. And every once in a while he beamed down the line of his party and said: "This is a happy day!"
And he made them all come into the sitting-room back of the shop. "Wait here," he commanded. "No one must move!"
He went down to the cellar, presently to reappear with a dusty bottle of Johannisberger Cabinet. He pointed proudly to the seal. "Bronze!" he exclaimed. "It is wine like gold. It must be drunk slowly." He drew the cork and poured the wine with great ceremony, and they all drank with much touching of glasses and bowing and exchanging of good wishes, now in German, now in English, again in both. And the last toast, the one drunk with the greatest enthusiasm, was Brauner's favorite famous "Arbeit und Liebe und Heim!"
From that time forth Hilda began to look at Otto from a different point of view. And everything depends on point of view.
Then—the house in which Schwartz and Heilig had their shop was burned. And when their safe was drawn from the ruins, they found that their insurance had expired four days before the fire. It was Schwartz's business to look after the insurance, but Otto had never before failed to oversee. His mind had been in such confusion that he had forgotten.
He stared at the papers, stunned by the disaster. Schwartz wrung his hands and burst into tears. "I saw that you were in trouble," he wailed, "and that upset me. It's my fault. I've ruined us both."
There was nothing left of their business or capital, nothing but seven hundred dollars in debts to the importers of whom they bought.
Heilig shook off his stupor after a few minutes. "No matter," he said. "What's past is past."
He went straightway over to Second Avenue to the shop of Geishener, the largest delicatessen dealer in New York.
"I've been burned out," he explained. "I must get something to do."
Geishener offered him a place at eleven dollars a week. "I'll begin in the morning," said Otto. Then he went to Paul Brauner.
"When will you open up again?" asked Brauner.
"Not for a long time, several years. Everything's gone and I've taken a place with Geishener. I came to say that—that I can't marry your daughter."
Brauner did not know what answer to make. He liked Otto and had confidence in him. But the masses of the people build their little fortunes as coral insects build their islands. And Hilda was getting along—why, she would be twenty in four months. "I don't know. I don't know." Brauner rubbed his head in embarrassment and perplexity. "It's bad—very bad. And everything was running so smoothly."
Hilda came in. Both men looked at her guiltily. "What is it?" she asked. And if they had not been mere men they would have noticed a change in her face, a great change, very wonderful and beautiful to see.
"I came to release you," said Otto.
"I've got nothing left—and a lot of debts. I—"
"Yes—I know," interrupted Hilda. She went up to him and put her arm round his neck. "We'll have to begin at the bottom," she said with a gentle, cheerful smile.
Brauner pretended that he heard some one calling him from the shop. "Yes right away!" he shouted. And when he was alone in the shop he wiped his eyes, not before a large tear had blistered the top sheet of a pile of wrapping paper.
"I know you don't care for me as—as"—Otto was standing uneasily, his eyes down and his face red. "It was hard enough for you before. Now—I couldn't let you do it—dear."
"You can't get rid of me so easily," she said. "I know I'm getting along and I won't be an old maid."
He paid no attention to her raillery. "I haven't got anything to ask you to share," he went on. "I've been working ever since I was eleven—and that's fourteen years—to get what I had. And it's all gone. It'll take several years to pay off my debts, and mother must be supported. No—I've got to give it up."
"Won't you marry me, Otto?" She put her arms round his neck.
His lips trembled and his voice broke. "I can't—let you do it, Hilda."
"Very well." She pretended to sigh.
"But you must come back this evening. I want to ask you again."
"Yes, I'll come. But you can't change me."
He went, and she sat at the table, with her elbows on it and her face between her hands, until her father came in. Then she said: "We're going to be married next week. And I want two thousand dollars. We'll give you our note."
Brauner rubbed his face violently.
"We're going to start a delicatessen," she continued, "in the empty store where Bischoff was. It'll take two thousand dollars to start right."
"That's a good deal of money," objected her father.
"You only get three and a half per cent. in the savings bank," replied Hilda. "We'll give you six. You know it'll be safe—Otto and I together can't fail to do well."
Brauner reflected. "You can have the money," he said.
She went up the Avenue humming softly one of Heine's love songs, still with that wonderful, beautiful look in her eyes. She stopped at the tenement with the vacant store. The owner, old man Schulte, was sweeping the sidewalk. He had an income of fifteen thousand a year; but he held that he needed exercise, that sweeping was good exercise, and that it was stupid for a man, simply because he was rich, to stop taking exercise or to take it only in some form which had no useful side.
"Good morning," said Hilda. "What rent do you ask for this store?"
"Sixty dollars a month," answered the old man, continuing his sweeping. "Taxes are up, but rents are down."
"Not with you, I guess. Otto Heilig and I are going to get married and open a delicatessen. But sixty dollars a month is too much. Good morning." And she went on.
Schulte leaned on his broom. "What's your hurry?" he called. "You can't get as good a location as this."
Hilda turned, but seemed to be listening from politeness rather than from interest.
"We can't pay more than forty," she answered, starting on her way again.
"I might let you have it for fifty," Schulte called after her, "if you didn't want any fixing up."
"It'd have to be fixed up," said Hilda, halting again. "But I don't care much for the neighborhood. There are too many delicatessens here now."
She went on more rapidly and the old man resumed his sweeping, muttering crossly into his long, white beard. As she came down the other side of the street half an hour later, she was watching Schulte from the corner of her eye. He was leaning on his broom, watching her. Seeing that she was going to pass without stopping he called to her and went slowly across the street. "You would make good tenants," he said. "I had to sue Bischoff. You can have it for forty—if you'll pay for the changes you want—you really won't want any."
"I was looking at it early this morning," replied Hilda. "There'll have to be at least two hundred dollars spent. But then I've my eye on another place."
"Forty's no rent at all," grumbled the old man, pulling at his whiskers.
"I can get a store round in Seventh Street for thirty-five and that includes three rooms at the back. You've got only one room at the back."
"There's a kitchen, too," said Schulte.
"A kitchen? Oh, you mean that closet."
"I'll let you have it for forty, with fifty the second year."
"No, forty for two years. We can't pay more. We're just starting, and expenses must be kept down."
"Well, forty then. You are nice people—hard workers. I want to see you get on." The philanthropic old man returned to his sweeping. "Always the way, dealing with a woman," he growled into his beard. "They don't know the value of anything. Well, I'll get my money anyway, and that's a point."
She spent the day shopping and by half-past five had her arrangements almost completed. And she told every one about the coming marriage and the new shop and asked them to spread the news.
"We'll be open for business next Saturday a week," she said. "Give us a trial."
By nightfall Otto was receiving congratulations. He protested, denied, but people only smiled and winked. "You're not so sly as you think," they said. "No doubt she promised to keep it quiet, but you know how it is with a woman."
When he called at Brauner's at seven he was timid about going in. "They've heard the story," he said to himself, "and they must think I went crazy and told it."
She had been bold enough all day, but she was shy, now that the time had come to face him and confess—she had been a little shy with him underneath ever since she had suddenly awakened to the fact that he was a real hero—in spite of his keeping a shop just like everybody else and making no pretenses. He listened without a word.
"You can't back out now," she ended.
Still he was silent. "Are you angry at me?" she asked timidly.
He could not speak. He put his arms round her and pressed his face into her waving black hair. "MY Hilda," he said in a low voice. And she felt his blood beating very fast, and she understood.
"Arbeit und Liebe und Heim," she quoted slowly and softly.
The next day Mr. Feuerstein returned from exile. It is always disillusioning to inspect the unheroic details of the life of that favorite figure with romancers—the soldier of fortune. Of Mr. Feuerstein's six weeks in Hoboken it is enough to say that they were weeks of storm and stress—wretched lodgments in low boarding-houses, odd jobs at giving recitations in beer halls, undignified ejectments for drunkenness and failure to pay, borrowings which were removed from frank street-begging only in his imagination. He sank very low indeed, but it must be recorded to the credit of his consistency that he never even contemplated the idea of working for a living. And now here he was, back in New York, with Hoboken an exhausted field, with no resources, no hopes, no future that his brandy-soaked brain could discern.
His mane was still golden and bushy; but it was ragged and too long in front of the ears and also on his neck. His face still expressed insolence and vanity; but it had a certain tragic bitterness, as if it were trying to portray the emotions of a lofty spirit flinging defiance at destiny from a slough of despair. It was plain that he had been drinking heavily—the whites of his eyes were yellow and bloodshot, the muscles of his eyelids and mouth twitched disagreeably. His romantic hat and collar and graceful suit could endure with good countenance only the most casual glance of the eye.
Mr. Feuerstein had come to New York to perform a carefully-planned last act in his life-drama, one that would send the curtain down amid tears and plaudits for Mr. Feuerstein, the central figure, enwrapped in a somber and baleful blaze of glory. He had arranged everything except such details as must be left to the inspiration of the moment. He was impatient for the curtain to rise—besides, he had empty pockets and might be prevented from his climax by a vulgar arrest for vagrancy.
At one o'clock Hilda was in her father's shop alone. The rest of the family were at the midday dinner. As she bent over the counter, near the door, she was filling a sheet of wrapping paper with figures—calculations in connection with the new business. A shadow fell across her paper and she looked up. She shrank and clasped her hands tightly against her bosom. "Mr. Feuerstein!" she exclaimed in a low, agitated voice.
He stood silent, his face ghastly as if he were very ill. His eyes, sunk deep in blue-black sockets, burned into hers with an intensity that terrified her. She began slowly to retreat.
"Do not fly from me," he said in a hollow voice, leaning against the counter weakly. "I have come only for a moment. Then—you will see me never again!"
She paused and watched him. His expression, his tone, his words filled her with pity for him.
"You hate me," he went on. "You abhor me. It is just—just! Yet"—he looked at her with passionate sadness—"it was because I loved you that I deceived you. Because—I—loved you!"
"You must go away," said Hilda, pleading rather than commanding. "You've done me enough harm."
"I shall harm you no more." He drew himself up in gloomy majesty. "I have finished my life. I am bowing my farewell. Another instant, and I shall vanish into the everlasting night."
"That would be cowardly!" exclaimed Hilda. She was profoundly moved. "You have plenty to live for."
"Do you forgive me, Hilda?" He gave her one of his looks of tragic eloquence.
"Yes—I forgive you."
He misunderstood the gentleness of her voice. "She loves me still!" he said to himself. "We shall die together and our names will echo down the ages." He looked burningly at her and said: "I was mad—mad with love for you. And when I realized that I had lost you, I went down, down, down. God! What have I not suffered for your sake, Hilda!" As he talked he convinced himself, pictured himself to himself as having been drawn on by a passion such as had ruined many others of the great of earth.
"That's all past now." She spoke impatiently, irritated against herself because she was not hating him. "I don't care to hear any more of that kind of talk."
A customer came in, and while Hilda was busy Mr. Feuerstein went to the rear counter. On a chopping block lay a knife with a long, thin blade, ground to a fine edge and a sharp point. He began to play with it, and presently, with a sly, almost insane glance to assure himself that she was not seeing, slipped it into the right outside pocket of his coat. The customer left and he returned to the front of the shop and stood with just the breadth of the end of the narrow counter between him and her.
"It's all over for me," he began. "Your love has failed me. There is nothing left. I shall fling myself through the gates of death. I shall be forgotten. And you will live on and laugh and not remember that you ever had such love as mine."
Another customer entered. Mr. Feuerstein again went to the rear of the space outside the counters. "She loves me. She will gladly die with me," he muttered. "First into HER heart, then into mine, and we shall be at peace, dead, as lovers and heroes die!"
When they were again alone, he advanced and began to edge round the end of the counter. She was no longer looking at him, did not note his excitement, was thinking only of how to induce him to go. "Hilda," he said, "I have one last request—a dying man's request—"
The counter was no longer between them. He was within three feet of her. His right hand was in his coat pocket, grasping the knife. His eyes began to blaze and he nerved himself to seize her—
Both heard her father's voice in the hall leading to the sitting-room. "You must go," she cried, hastily retreating.
"Hilda," he pleaded rapidly, "there is something I must say to you. I can not say it here. Come over to Meinert's as soon as you can. I shall be in the sitting-room. Just for a moment, Hilda. It might save my life. If not that, it certainly would make my death happier."
Brauner was advancing into the shop and his lowering face warned Mr. Feuerstein not to linger. With a last, appealing look at Hilda he departed.
"What was HE doing here?" growled Brauner.
"He'd just come in," answered Hilda absently. "He won't bother us any more."
"If he comes again, don't speak to him," said Brauner in the commanding voice that sounded so fierce and meant so little. "Just call me or August."
Hilda could not thrust him out of her mind. His looks, his tones, his dramatic melancholy saddened her; and his last words rang in her ears. She no longer loved him; but she HAD loved him. She could not think of him as a stranger and an enemy—there might be truth in his plea that he had in some mysterious way fallen through love for her. She might be able to save him.
Almost mechanically she left the shop, went to Sixth Street and to the "family entrance" of Meinert's beer-garden. She went into the little anteroom and, with her hand on the swinging door leading to the sitting-room, paused like one waking from a dream.
"I must be crazy," she said half aloud. "He's a scoundrel and no good can come of my seeing him. What would Otto think of me? What am I doing here?" And she hastened away, hoping that no one had seen her.
Mr. Feuerstein was seated at a table a few feet from where she had paused and turned back. He had come in half an hour before and had ordered and drunk three glasses of cheap, fiery brandy. As the moments passed his mood grew wilder and more somber. "She has failed me!" he exclaimed. He called for pen, ink and paper. He wrote rapidly and, when he had finished, declaimed his production, punctuating the sentences with looks and gestures. His voice gradually broke, and he uttered the last words with sobs and with the tears streaming down his cheeks. He signed his name with a flourish, added a postscript. He took a stamped envelope from his pocket, sealed the letter, addressed it and laid it before him on the table. "The presence of death inspired me," he said, looking at his production with tragic pride. And he called for another drink.
When the waiter brought it, he lifted it high and, standing up, bowed as if some one were opposite him at the table. "I drink to you, Death!" he said. The waiter stared in open-mouthed astonishment, and with a muttered, "He's luny!" backed from the room.
He sat again and drew the knife from his pocket and slid his finger along the edge. "The key to my sleeping-room," he muttered, half imagining that a vast audience was watching with bated breath.
The waiter entered and he hid the knife.
"Away!" he exclaimed, frowning heavily. "I wish to be alone."
"Mr. Meinert says you must pay," said the waiter. "Four drinks—sixty cents."
Mr. Feuerstein laughed sardonically.
"Pay! Ha—ha! Always pay! Another drink, wretch, and I shall pay for all—for all!" He laughed, with much shaking of the shoulders and rolling of the eyes.
When the waiter had disappeared he muttered: "I can wait no longer." He took the knife, held it at arm's length, blade down. He turned his head to the left and closed his eyes. Then with a sudden tremendous drive he sent the long, narrow blade deep into his neck. The blood spurted out, his breath escaped from between his lips with long, shuddering, subsiding hisses. His body stiffened, collapsed, rolled to the floor.
Mr. Feuerstein was dead—with empty pockets and the drinks unpaid for.