Seconds pa.s.sed into minutes; and the minutes seemed hours. Maurice watched, on the alert to intervene, if necessary.
At the entrance of her visitors, Louise had been unable to see distinctly, so stupefied was she by the thought that the person on whom her thoughts had run, with a kind of madness, for more than forty-eight hours, was actually in the room beside her--it was just as though a nightmare phantom had taken bodily form. And then, too, though she had spent each of these hours in picturing to herself what this girl would be like, the reality was so opposed to her imagining that, at first, she could not reconcile the differences.
Now she forced herself to see every line of the face. Nothing escaped her. She saw how loosened tendrils of hair on neck and forehead became little curls; saw the finely marked brows, and the dark blue veins at the temples; the pink and white colouring of the cheeks; the small nose, modelled as if in wax; the fascinating baby mouth, with its short upper-lip. Like most dark, sallow women, whose own brief freshness is past, the elder girl pa.s.sionately admired such may-blossom beauty, as something belonging to a different race from herself. And this was not all: as she continued to look into Ephie"s face, she ceased to be herself; she became the man whose tastes she knew better than her own; she saw with his eyes, felt with his senses. She pictured Ephie"s face, arch and smiling, lifted to his; and she understood and excused his weakness. He had not been able to help what had happened: this was the prettiness that drew him in, the kind he had invariably turned to look back at, in the street--something fair and round, adorably small and young, something to be petted and protected, that clung, and was childishly subordinate. For her dark sallowness, for her wilful mastery, he had only had a pa.s.sing fancy. She was not his type, and she knew it. But to have known it vaguely, when it did not matter, and to know it at a moment like the present, were two different things.
In a burst of despair she let her arms fall to her sides; but her insatiable eyes gazed on; and Ephie, though she was now free, did not stir, but remained standing, with her face raised, in a silly fascination. And the eyes, having taken in the curves of cheeks and chin, and the soft white throat, pa.s.sed to the rounded, drooping shoulders, to the plumpness of the girlish figure, embracing the whole body in their devouring gaze. Ephie went hot and cold beneath them; she felt as if her clothes were being stripped from her, and she left standing naked. Louise saw the changing colour, and interpreted it in her own way. His--all his! He was not the mortal--she knew it only too well--to have this flower within his reach, and not clutch at it, instinctively, as a child clutches at sunbeams. It would riot have been in nature for him to do otherwise than take, greedily, without reflection. At the thought of it, a spasm of jealousy caught her by the throat; her hanging hands trembled to hurt this infantile prettiness, to spoil these lips that had been kissed by his.
Maurice was at her side. "Don"t hurt her," he said, and did not know how the words came to his lips.
The spell was broken. The unnatural expression died out of her face; she was tired and apathetic.
"Hurt her?" she repeated faintly. "No, don"t be afraid. I shall not hurt her. But if I beat her with ropes till all my strength was gone, I couldn"t hurt her as she has hurt me."
"Hush! Don"t say such things."
"I? I hurt you?" said Ephie, and began to cry afresh. "How could I? I don"t even know you."
"No, you don"t know me; and yet you have done me the cruellest wrong."
"Oh, no, no," sobbed Ephic. "No, indeed!"
"He was all I had--all I cared for. And you plotted, and planned, and stole him from me--with your silly baby face."
"It"s not true," wept Ephie. "How could I? I didn"t know anything about you. He ... he never spoke of you."
Louise laughed. "Oh, I can believe that! And you thought, didn"t you, you poor little fool, that he only cared for you? That was why my name was never mentioned. He didn"t need to scheme, and contrive, and lie, lie abominably, for fear I should come to hear what he was doing!"
"No, indeed," sobbed Ephie. "Never! And you"ve no right to say such things of him."
"I no right?" Louise drew herself up. "No right to say what I like of him? Are you going to tell me what I shall say and what I shan"t of the man I loved?--yes, and who loved me, too, but in a way you couldn"t understand you who think all you have to do is to smile your silly smile, and spoil another person"s life. You didn"t know, no, of course not!--didn"t know this was his room as well as mine. Look, his music is still lying on the piano; that"s the chair he sat in, not many days ago; here," she took Ephie by the shoulder and drew her behind the screen, where a small door, papered like the wall, gave, direct from the stair-head, a second entrance to the room--"here"s the door he came in at.--For he came as he liked, whenever he chose."
"It"s not true; it can"t be true," said Ephie, and raised her tear-stained face defiantly. "We are engaged--since the summer. He"s coming back to marry me soon."
"He"s coming back to marry you!" echoed Louise in a blank voice. "He"s coming back to marry you!"
She moved a few steps away, and stood by the writing-table, looking dazed, as if she did not understand. Then she laughed.
Ephie cried with renewed bitterness. "I want to go home."
But Maurice did not pay any attention to her. He was watching Louise, with a growing dismay. For she continued to laugh, in a breathless way, with a catch in the throat, which made the laughter sound like sobbing.
On his approaching her, she tried to check herself, but without success. She wiped her lips, and pressed her handkerchief to them, then took the handkerchief between her teeth and bit it. She crossed to the window, and stood with her back to the others; but she could not stop laughing. She went behind the low, broad screen that divided the room, and sat down on the edge of the bed; but still she had to laugh on. She came out again into the other part of the room, and saw Maurice pale and concerned, and Ephie"s tears dried through pure fear; but the sight of these two made her laugh more violently than before. She held her face in her hands, and pressed her jaws together as though she would break them; for they shook with a nervous convulsion. Her whole body began to shake, with the efforts she made at repression.
Ephie cowered in her seat. "Oh, Maurice, let us go. I"m so afraid," she implored him.
"Don"t be frightened! It"s all right." But he was following Louise about the room, entreating her to regain the mastery of herself. When he did happen to notice Ephie more closely, he said: "Go downstairs, and wait for me there. I"ll come soon."
Ephie did not need twice telling: she turned and fled. He heard the hall-door bang behind her.
"Do try to control yourself. Miss Dufrayer--Louise! Every one in the house will hear you."
But she only laughed the more. And now the merest trifles helped to increase the paroxysm--the way Maurice worked his hands, Ephie"s m.u.f.f lying forgotten on a chair, the landlady"s inquisitive face peering in at the door. The laugh continued, though it had become a kind of cackle--a sound without tone. Maurice could bear it no longer. He went up to her and tried to take her hands. She repulsed him, but he was too strong for her. He took both her hands in his, and pressed her down on a chair. He was not clear himself what to do next; but, the moment he touched her, the laughter ceased. She gasped for breath; he thought she would choke, and let her hands go again. She pressed them to her throat; her breath came more and more quickly; her eyes closed; and falling forward on her knees, she hid her face in the cushioned seat of the sofa.
Then the tears came, and what tears! In all his life, Maurice had never heard crying like this. He moved as far away from her as he could, stood at the window, staring out and biting his lips, while she sobbed, regardless of his presence, with the utter abandon of a child. Like a child, too, she wept rebelliously, unchastenedly, as he could not have believed it possible for a grown person to cry. Such grief as this, so absolute a despair, had nothing to do with reason or the reasoning faculties; and the words were not invented that would be able to soothe it.
But, little by little, a change came over her crying. The rebellion died out of it; it grew duller, and more blunted, hopeless, without life. Her strength was almost gone. Now, however, there was another note of childishness in it, that of complete exhaustion, which it is so hard to hear. The tears rose to his own eyes; he would have liked to go to her, to lay his hand on her head, and treat her tenderly, to make her cease and be happy once more; but he did not dare. Had he done so, she might not have repelled him; for, in all intensely pa.s.sionate grief, there comes a moment of subsidence, when the grief and its origin are forgotten, and the one overruling desire is the desire to be comforted, no matter who the comforter and what his means, so long as they are masterful and strong.
She grew calmer; and soon she was only shaken at widening intervals by a sob. Then these, too, ceased, and Maurice held his breath. But as, after a considerable time had elapsed, she still lay without making sound or movement, he crossed the room to look at her. She was fast asleep, half sitting, half lying, with her head on the cushions, and the tears wet on her cheeks. He hesitated between a wish to see her in a more comfortable position, and an unwillingness to disturb her.
Finally, he took an eider-down quilt from the bed, and wrapped it round her; then slipped noiselessly from the room.
It was past eight o"clock.
Ephie ran down the stairs as if a spectre were at her heels, and even when in the street, did not venture to slacken her speed. Although the dusk was rapidly pa.s.sing into dark, a good deal of notice was attracted by the sight of a well-dressed young girl running along, holding a handkerchief to her face, and every now and then emitting a loud sob.
People stood and stared after her, and some little boys ran with her.
Instead of dropping her pace when she saw this, Ephie grew confused, and ran more quickly than before. She had turned at random, on coming out of the house; and she was in a part of the town she did not know.
In her eagerness to get away from people, she took any turn that offered; and after a time she found that she had crossed the river, and was on what was almost a country road. A little further off, she knew, lay the woods; if once she were in their shelter, she would be safe; and, without stopping to consider that night was falling, she ran towards them at full speed. On the first seat she came to she sank breathless and exhausted.
Her first sensation was one of relief at being alone. She unpinned and took off the big, heavy hat, and laid it on the seat beside her, in order to be more at her case; and then she cried, heartily, and without precautions, enjoying to the full the luxury of being unwatched and unheard. Since teatime, she seemed to have been fighting her tears, exercising a self-restraint that was new to her and very hard; and not to-day alone--oh, no, for weeks past, she had been obliged to act a part. Not even in her bed at night had she been free to indulge her grief; for, if she cried then, it made her pale and heavy-eyed next day, and exposed her to Joan"s comments. And there were so many things to cry about: all the emotional excitement of the summer, with its ups and downs of hope and fear; the never-ceasing need of dissimulation; the gnawing uncertainty caused by Schilsky"s silence; the growing sense of blankness and disappointment; Joan"s suspicions; Maurice"s discovery; the knowledge that Schilsky had gone away without a word to her; and, worst of all, and most inexplicable, the terrible visit of the afternoon--at the remembrance of the madwoman she had escaped from, Ephie"s tears flowed with renewed vigour. Her handkerchief was soaked and useless; she held her fur tippet across her eyes to receive the tears as they fell; and when this grew too wet, she raised the skirt of her dress to her face. Not a sound was to be heard but her sobbing; she was absolutely alone; and she wept on till those who cared for her, whose chief wish was to keep grief from her, would hardly have recognized in her the child they loved.
How long she had been there she did not know, when she was startled to her feet by a loud rustling in the bushes behind her. Then, of a sudden, she became aware that it was pitch-dark, and that she was all by herself in the woods. She took to her heels, in a panic of fear, and did not stop running till the street-lamps came into sight. When she was under their friendly shine, and could see people walking on the other side of the river, she remembered that she had left her hat lying on the seat. At this fresh misfortune, she began to cry anew. But not for anything in the world would she have ventured back to fetch it.
She crossed the Pleisse and came to a dark, quiet street, where few people were; and here she wandered up and down. It was late; at home they would be sitting at supper now, exhausting themselves in conjectures where she could be. Ephie was very hungry, and at the thought of the warmth and light of the supper-table, a lump rose in her throat. If it had been only her mother, she might have faced her--but Joan! Home in this plight, at this hour, hatless, and with swollen face, to meet Joan"s eyes and questions!--she shivered at the idea.
Moreover, the whole PENSION would get to know what had happened to her; she would need to bear inquisitive looks and words; she would have to explain, or, still worse, to invent and tell stories again; and of what use were they now, when all was over? A feeling of la.s.situde overcame her--an inability to begin fresh. All over: he would never put his arm round her again, never come towards her, careless and smiling, and call her his "little, little girl."
She sobbed to herself as she walked. Everything was bleak, and black, and cheerless. She would perhaps die of the cold, and then all of them, Joan in particular, would be filled with remorse. She stood and looked at the inky water of the river between its stone walls. She had read of people drowning themselves; what if she went down the steps and threw herself in?--and she feebly fingered at the gate. But it was locked and chained; and at the idea of her warm, soft body touching the icy water; at the picture of herself lying drowned, with dank hair, or, like the Christian Martyr, floating away on the surface; at the thought of their grief, of HIM wringing his hands over her corpse, she was so moved that she wept aloud again, and almost ran to be out of temptation"s way.
It had begun to drizzle. Oh, how tired she was! And she was obliged constantly to dodge impertinently staring men. In a long, wide street, she entered a door-way that was not quite so dark as the others, and sat down on the bottom step of the stairs. Here she must have dozed, for she was roused by angry voices on the floor above. It sounded like some one who was drunk; and she fled trembling back to the street.
A neighbouring clock struck ten. At this time of night, she could not go home, even though she wished to. She was wandering the streets like any outcast, late at night, without a hat--and her condition of hatlessness she felt to be the chief stigma. But she was starving with hunger, and so tired that she could scarcely drag one foot after the other. Oh, what would they say if they knew what their poor little Ephie was enduring! Her mother--Joan---Maurice!
Maurice! The thought of him came to her like a ray of light. It was to Maurice she would turn. He would be good to her, and help her; he had always been kind to her, till this afternoon. And he knew what had happened; it would not be necessary to explain.--Oh, Maurice, Maurice!
She knew his address, if she could but find the street. A droschke pa.s.sed, and she tried to hail it; but she did not like to advance too far out of the shadow, on account of her bare head. Finally, plucking up courage, she inquired the way of a feather-hatted woman, who had eyed her with an inquisitive stare.
It turned out that the BRAUSTRa.s.sE was just round the corner; she had perhaps been in the street already, without knowing it; and now she found it, and the house, without difficulty. The street-door was still open; or she would never have been bold enough to ring.
The stair was poorly lighted, and full of unsavoury smells. In her agitation, Ephie rang on a wrong floor, and a strange man answered her timid inquiry. She climbed a flight higher, and rang again. There was a long and ominous pause, in which her heart beat fast; if Maurice did not live here either, she would drop where she stood. She was about to ring a second time, when felt slippers and an oil lamp moved along the pa.s.sage, the gla.s.s window was opened, and a woman"s face peered out at her. Yes, Herr Guest lived there, certainly, said Frau Krause, divided between curiosity and indignation at having to rise from bed; and she held the lamp above her head, in order to see Ephie better. But he was not at home, and, even if he were, at this hour of night ... The heavy words shuffled along, giving the voracious eyes time to devour.
At the thought that her request might be denied her, Ephie"s courage took its last leap.
"Why, I must see him. I have something important to tell him. Could I not wait?" she urged in her broken German, feeling unspeakably small and forlorn. And yielding to a desire to examine more nearly the bare, damp head and costly furs, Frau Krause allowed the girl to pa.s.s before her into Maurice"s room.
She loitered as long as she could over lighting the lamp that stood on the table; and meanwhile threw repeated glances at Ephie, who, having given one look round the shabby room, sank into a corner of the sofa and hid her face: the coa.r.s.e browed woman, in petticoat and night-jacket, seemed to her capable of robbery or murder. And so Frau Krause unwillingly withdrew, to await further developments outside: the holy, smooth-faced Herr Guest was a deep one, after all.
When Maurice entered, shortly before eleven, Ephie started up from a broken sleep. He came in pale and disturbed, for Frau Krause had met him in the pa.s.sage with angry mutterings about a FRAUENZIMMER in his room; and his thoughts had at once leaped fearfully to Louise. When he saw Ephie, he uttered a loud exclamation of surprise.