It would have need a stronger than he to answer otherwise. "Of course I do," was easily said, and to avoid the necessity of more, he kissed the pink dimples at the base of her four fingers, as well as the baby crease that marked the wrist. The poppy-strewn hat lay on the seat beside them; the fluffy head and full white throat were bare; in the mellow light of the trees, the lashes looked jet-black on her cheeks; at each word, he saw her small, even teeth: and he was so unnerved by the nearness of all this fresh young beauty that, when Ephie with her accustomed frankness had told him everything he cared to know, he found himself saying, in place of what he had intended, that they must be very cautious. In the meantime, it would not do for them to be seen together: it might injure his prospects, be harmful to his future.
"Yes, but afterwards?" she asked him promptly.
He kissed her cheek. But she repeated the question, and he was obliged to reply: that would be a different matter. It was now her turn to be curious, and one of the first questions she put related to the dark girl he had been with at the theatre. Playing lightly with her fingers, Schilsky told her that this was one of his best friends, some one he had known for a long, long time, to whom he owed much, and whom he could under no circ.u.mstances offend. Ephie looked grave for a moment; and, in the desire of provoking a pretty confession, he asked her if she had minded very much seeing him with some one else. But she made him wince by responding with perfect candour: "With her? Oh, no! She"s quite old."
Before parting, they arranged the date of the next meeting, and, a beginning once made, they saw each other as often as was feasible.
Ephie grew wonderfully apt at excuses for going out at odd times, and for prolonged absences. Sound fictions were needed to satisfy Johanna, and even Maurice Guest was made to act as dummy: he had taken her for a walk, or they had been together to see Madeleine Wade; and by these means, and also by occasionally shirking a lesson, she gained a good deal of freedom. Johanna would as soon have thought of herself being untruthful as of doubting Ephie, whom she had never known to tell a lie; and if she did sometimes feel jealous of all the new claims made on her little sister"s attention, such a feeling was only temporary, and she was, for the most part, content to see Ephie content.
At night, in her own room, lying wakeful with hot cheeks and big eyes, Ephie went over in memory all that had taken place at their last meeting, or built high, top-heavy castles for the future. She was absurdly happy; and her mother and sister had never found her more charming and lovable, or richer in those trifling inspirations for brightening life, which happiness brings with it. She looked forward with secret triumph to the day when she would be able to announce her engagement to the celebrated young violinist, and the only shadow on her happiness was that she could not do this immediately. It did not once cross her mind to doubt the issue: she had always had her way, and, in her own mind, had long since arranged just how this matter was to fall out. She would return to America--where, of course, they would live--and get her clothes ready, and then he would come, and they would be married--a big wedding, with descriptions in the newspapers. They would have a big house, and he would play at concerts--as she had once heard Sarasate play in New York--and every one would stand on tiptoe to see him. She sat proud and conspicuous in the front row. "His wife.
That is his wife!" people whispered, and they drew respectfully back to let her pa.s.s, as, in a very becoming dress, she swept into the little room behind the platform, which she alone was permitted to enter.
One day at this time there was a violent thunderstorm. Towards midday, the eastern sky grew black with clouds, which, for hours, had been ominously gathering; a sudden wind rose and swept the dust house-high through the streets; the thunder rumbled, and each roll came nearer.
When, after a prolonged period of expectation, the storm finally burst, there was a universal sigh of relief.
The afternoon was damply refreshing. As soon as the rain ceased, Maurice shut his piano, and walked at a brisk pace to Connewitz, his head bared beneath the overhanging branches, which were still weighed down by their burden of drops. At the WALDCAFE on the bank of the river, in a thickly grown arbour which he entered to drink a gla.s.s of beer, he found Philadelphia Jensen and the pale little American, Fauvre, taking coffee.
The lady welcomed him with a large, outstretched hand, in the effusively hearty manner with which she, as it were, took possession of people; and towards six o"clock, the three walked back through the woods together, Miss Jensen, resolute of bust as of voice, slightly ahead of her companions, carrying her hat in her hand, Fauvre dragging behind, hitting indolently at stones and shrubs, and singing sc.r.a.ps of melodies to himself in his deep baritone.
Miss Jensen, who had once been a journalist, was an earnest worker for woman"s emanc.i.p.ation, and having now successfully mounted her hobby, spoke with a thought-deadening eloquence. Maurice had never been called on to think about the matter, and listened to her words absent-mindedly, comparing her, as she swept along, to a ship in full sail. She was just a.s.serting that the ordinary German woman was little more than means to an end, the end being the man-child, when his attention was arrested, and, in an instant, jerked far away from Miss Jensen"s theories. As they reached the bend of a path, a sound of voices came to them through the trees, and on turning a corner, Maurice caught a glimpse of two people who were going in the opposite direction, down a side-walk--a pa.s.sing but vivid glimpse of a light, flowered dress, of a grey suit of clothes, and auburn hair. Ephie! He could have sworn to voice and dress; but to whom in all the world was she talking, so confidentially? At the name that rose to his lips, he almost stopped short, but the next moment he was afraid lest his companions should also have seen who it was, and, quickening his steps, he incited Miss Jensen to talk on. First, however, that lady said in a surprised tone: "Say, that was Mr. Schilsky, wasn"t it? Who was the lady? Did you perceive?" So there was no possible doubt of it.
After parting from his companions, he did an errand in the town, and from there went to the Cayhills" PENSION, determined to ascertain whether it had really been Ephie he had seen, and if so, what the meaning of it was.
Mrs. Cayhill and Johanna were in the sitting-room; Johanna looked very surprised to see him. They had this moment risen from the supper-table, she told him; Ephie had only just got home in time. Before anything further could be said, Ephie herself came into the room; her face was flushed, and she did not seem well-pleased at his unexpected visit. She hardly greeted him, and instead, commenced talking about the weather.
"Then you had a pleasant walk?" asked Johanna in a preoccupied fashion, without looking up from the letter she was writing; and before Maurice could speak, Ephie, fondling her sister"s neck, answered: "How could it be anything but sweet--after the rain?"
In the face of this frankness, it was on Maurice"s tongue to say: "Then it was you, I saw?" but again she did not give him time. Still standing behind Johanna"s chair, her eyes fixed on the young man"s face with a curious intentness, she continued: "We walked right to Connewitz and back without a rest."
"I don"t think you should take her so far," said Mrs. Cayhill, looking up from her book with her kindly smile. "She has never been used to walking and is easily tired--aren"t you, my pet?"
"Yes, and then she can"t get up the next morning," said Johanna, mildly dogmatic, considering the following sentence of her letter.
Gradually it broke upon Maurice that Ephie had been making use of his name. His consternation at the discovery was such that he changed colour. The others, however, were both too engrossed to notice it.
Ephie grew scarlet, but continued to rattle on, covering his silence.
"Well, perhaps to-day it was a little too far," she admitted. "But mummy, I won"t have you say I"m not strong. Why, Herr Becker is always telling me how full my tone is getting. Yes indeed. And look at my muscle."
She turned back the loose sleeve of her blouse, baring almost the whole of her rounded arm; then, folding it sharply to her, she invited one after another to test its firmness.
"Quite a prize-fighter, I declare!" laughed Mrs. Cayhill, at the same time drawing her little daughter to her, to kiss her. But Johanna frowned, and told Ephie to put down her sleeve at once; there was something in the childish action that offended the elder sister, she did not know why. But Maurice had first to lay two of his fingers on the soft skin, and then to help her to b.u.t.ton the cuff.
When, soon after this, he took his leave, Ephie went out of the room with him. In the dark pa.s.sage, she caught at his hand.
"Morry, you mustn"t tell tales on me," she whispered; and added pettishly: "Why ever did you just come to-night?"
He tried to see her face. "What is it all about, Ephie?" he asked.
"Then it WAS you, I saw, in the NONNE--by the weir?"
"Me? In the NONNE!" She was genuinely surprised. "You saw me?"
He nodded. By the light that came from the stairs as she opened the hall-door, she noticed that he looked troubled, and an impulse rose in her to throw her arms round his neck and say: "Yes, yes, it was me. Oh, Morry, I am so happy!" But she remembered the reasons for secrecy that had been imposed on her, and, at the same time, felt somewhat defiantly inclined towards Maurice. After all, what business was it of his? Why should he take her to task for what she chose to do? And so she merely laughed, with a.s.sumed merriment, her own charming, a.s.suaging laugh.
"In the wood?--you old goose! Listen, Morry, I told them I had been with you, because--why, because one of the girls in my cla.s.s asked me to go to the CAFE FRANCAIS with her, and we stayed too long, and ate too much ice-cream, and Joan doesn"t like it, and I knew she would be cross--that"s all! Don"t look so glum, you silly! It"s nothing," and she laughed again.
As long as this laugh rang in his ears--to the bottom of the street, that is--he believed her. Then, the evidence of his senses rea.s.serted itself, and he knew that what she had told him was false. He had heard her voice in the wood too distinctly to allow of any mistake, and she was still wearing the same dress. Besides, she had lied so artlessly to the others, without a tremor of her candid eyes--why should she not lie to him, too? She was less likely to be considerate of him than of Johanna. But his distress at her skill in deceit was so great that he said: "Ephie, little Ephie!" aloud to himself, just as he might have done had he heard that she was stricken down by a mortal illness.
On the top of this, however, came less selfish feelings. What was almost a sense of guilt took possession of him; he felt as if, in some way, he were to blame for what had happened; as if nature had intended him to stand in the place of a brother to this pretty, thoughtless child. And yet what could he have done? He did not now see Ephie as often as formerly, and hardly ever alone; on looking back, he began to suspect that she had purposely avoided him. The exercises in harmony, which had previously brought them together, had been discontinued.
First, she had said that her teacher was satisfied with what she herself could do; then, that he had advised her to give up harmony altogether: she would never make anything of it. In the light of what had come to pa.s.s, Maurice saw that he had let himself be duped by her; she had lied then as now.
He puzzled his brains to imagine how she had learned to know Schilsky in the first instance, and when the affair had begun: what he had overheard that afternoon implied an advanced stage of intimacy; and he revolved measures by means of which a stop might be put to it. The only course he could think of was to lay the matter before Johanna; and yet what would the use of that be? Ephie would deny everything, make his story ludicrous, himself impossible, and never forgive him into the bargain. In the end, he might do more good by watching over her silently, at a distance. If it had only not been Schilsky who was concerned! Some of the ugly stories he had heard related of the young man rose up and took vivid shape before his eyes. If any harm came to Ephie, he alone would be to blame for it; not Johanna, only he knew the frivolous temptations the young girl was exposed to. Why, in Heaven"s name, had he not taken both her hands, as they stood in the pa.s.sage, and insisted on her confessing to him? No, credulous as usual, he had once more allowed himself to be hoodwinked and put off.
Thus he fretted, without arriving at any clearer conclusion than this: that he had unwittingly been made accessory to an unpleasant secret.
But where his mind baulked, and refused to work, was when he tried to understand what all this might mean to the third person involved. Did Louise know or suspect anything? Had she, perhaps, for weeks past been suffering under the knowledge?
He stood irresolute, at the crossing where the MOZARTSTRa.s.sE joined the PROMENADE. A lamp-lighter was beginning his rounds; he came up with his long pole to the lamp at the corner, and, with a mild explosion, the little flame sprang into life. Maurice turned on his heel and went to see Madeleine.
The latter was making her supper of tea, bread, and cold sausage, and when she heard that he had not eaten, she set a cup and plate before him, and was glad that she happened to be late. Propped open on the table was a Danish Grammar, which she conned as she ate; for, in the coming holidays, she was engaged to go to Norway, as guide and travelling-companion to a party of Englishwomen.
"I had a letter from London to-day," she said, "with definite arrangements. So I at once bought this book. I intend to try and master at least the rudiments of the language--barbarous though it is--for I want to get some good from the journey. And if one has one"s wits about one, much can be learnt from cab-drivers and railway-porters."
She traced on a map with her forefinger the route they proposed to follow, and laughed at the idea of the responsibility lying heavy on her. But when they had finished their supper, and she had talked informingly for a time of Norway, its people and customs, she looked at the young man, who sat irresponsive and preoccupied, and considered him attentively.
"Is anything the matter to-night? Or are you only tired?"
He was tired. But though she herself had suggested it, she was not satisfied with his answer.
"Something has bothered you. Has your work gone badly?"
No, it was nothing of that sort. But Madeleine persisted: could she be of any help to him?
"The merest trifle--not worth talking about."
The twilight had grown thick around them; the furniture of the room lost its form, and stood about in shapeless ma.s.ses. Through the open window was heard the whistle of a distant train; a large fly that had been disturbed buzzed distractingly, undecided where to re-settle for the night. It was sultry again, after the rain.
"Look here, Maurice," Madeleine said, when she had observed him for some time in silence. "I don"t want to be officious, but there"s something I should like to say to you. It"s this. You are far too soft-hearted. If you want to get on in life, you must think more about yourself than you do. The battle is to the strong, you know, and the strong, within limits, are certainly the selfish. Let other people look after themselves; try not to mind how foolish they are--you can"t improve them. It"s harder, I daresay, than it is to be a person of unlimited sympathies; it"s harder to pa.s.s the maimed and crippled by, than to stop and weep over them, and feel their sufferings through yourself. But YOU have really something in you to occupy yourself with.
You"re not one of those people--I won"t mention names!--whose own emptiness forces them to take an intense interest in the doings of others, and who, the moment they are alone with their thoughts, are bored to desperation, just as there are people who have no talent for making a home home-like, and are only happy when they are out of it."
Here she laughed at her own seriousness.
"But you are smiling inwardly, and thinking: the real old school-marm!"
"You don"t practise what you preach, Madeleine. Besides, you"re mistaken. At heart, I"m a veritable egoist."
She contradicted him. "I know you better than you know yourself."
He did not reply, and a silence fell, in which the commonplace words she had last said, went on sounding and resounding, until they had no more likeness to themselves. Madeleine rose, and pushed back her chair, with a grating noise.
"I must light the lamp. Sitting in the dark makes for foolishness.
Come, wake up, and tell me what plans you have for the holidays."