He took one she held out to him, looked at it without seeing it, and threw it away. "Tell me, just this once, something about your life before I knew you. Were you very happy?--or were you unhappy? Do you know, I once heard you say you had never known a moment"s happiness?--yes, one summer night long ago, over in the NONNE. How I hoped then it was true! But I don"t know. You"ve never told me anything--of all there must be to tell."
"What you may have chanced to hear, by eavesdropping, doesn"t concern me now," Louise answered coldly. And then she shut her lips, and would say no more. She was wiser than she had been a week ago: she refused to hand her past over to him in order that he might smirch it with his thoughts.
But she could not understand him--understand the motives that made him want to unearth the past. If this were jealousy, it was a kind she did not know--a bloodless, bodiless kind, of which she had had no experience.
But it was not jealousy; it was only a craving for certainty in any guise, and the more surely Maurice felt that he would never gain it, the more tenaciously he strove. For certainty, that feeling of utter reliance in the loved one, which sets the heart at rest and leaves the mind free for the affairs of life, was what Louise had never given him; he had always been obliged to fall back on supposition with regard to her, equally at the height of their pa.s.sion, and in that first and stretch of time, when it was forbidden him to touch her hand. The real truth, the last-reaching truth about her, it would not be his to know.
Soul would never be absorbed in soul; not the most pa.s.sionate embraces could bridge the gulf; to their last kiss, they would remain separate beings, lonely and alone.
As this went on, he came to hate the vapidities of the concerto in G major. Mentally to be stretched on a kind of rack, and, at the same time, to be forced to reiterate the empty rhetoric of this music! From this time forward, he could not hear the name of Mendelssohn without a shiver of repugnance. How he wished now, that he had been content with the bare sincerity of Beethoven, who at least said no note more than he had to say.
One day, towards the end of November, he was working with even greater distaste than usual. Finally, in exasperation, he flapped the music to, shut the piano, and went out. A stroll along the muddy little railed-in river brought him to the PLEISSENBURG, and from there he crossed the KONIGSPLATZ to the BRUDERSTRa.s.sE. He had not come out with the intention of going to Louise, but, although it was barely four o"clock, the afternoon was drawing in; an interminable evening had to be got through. He had been walking at haphazard, and without relish; now his pace grew brisker. Having reached the house, he sprang nimbly up the stairs, and was about to insert his key in the little door in the wall, when he was arrested by a m.u.f.fled sound of voices. Louise was talking to some one, and, at the noise he made outside, she raised her voice--purposely, no doubt. He could not hear what was being said, but the second voice was a man"s. For a minute he stood, with his key suspended, straining his cars; then, afraid of being caught, he went downstairs again, where he hung about, between stair and street-door, in order that anyone who came down would be forced to pa.s.s him. At the end of five minutes, however, his patience was spent: he remembered, too, that the person might be as likely to go up as down. He mounted the stairs again, rang the bell, and had himself admitted by the landlady.
He thought she looked significantly at him as, with her usual pantomime of winks and signs, she whispered to him that a gentleman was with Fraulein--EIN SCHONER JUNGER MANN! Maurice pushed her aside, and opened the sitting-room door. Two heads turned at his entrance.
On the sofa, beside Louise, sat Herries, the ruddy little student of medicine with whom she had danced so often at the ball. He sat there, smiling and dapper, balancing his hard round hat on his knee, and holding gloves in his hand.
Louise looked the more untidy by contrast: as usual, her hair was half uncoiled. Maurice saw this in a flash, saw also the look of annoyance that crossed her face at his unceremonious entry. She raised astonished eyebrows. Then, however, she shook hands with him.
"I think you know Mr. Herries."
Maurice bowed stiffly across the table; Herries replied in kind, without discommoding himself.
"How d"ye do? I believe we"ve met," he said carelessly.
As Maurice made no rejoinder, but remained standing in an uncompromising att.i.tude, Herries turned to Louise again, and went on with what he had been saying. He was talking of England.
"I went back to Oxford after that," he continued. "I"ve diggings there, don"t you know? An old chum of mine"s a fellow of Magdalen. I was just in time for eights" week. A magnificent walk-over for our fellows. Ever seen the race? No? Oh, I say, that"s too bad. You must come over for it, next year."
"Mr. Herries only returned from England a few days ago," explained Louise, and again raised warning brows. "Do sit down. There"s a chair."
"Yes. I was over for the whole summer. Didn"t work here at all, in fact," added Herries, once more letting his bright eyes snapshot the young man, who, on sitting down, laid his shabby felt hat in the middle of the table.
"But now you intend to stay, I think you said?" Louise threw in at random, after they had waited for Maurice to fill up the pause.
"Yes, for the winter semester, anyhow. And I"ve got to tumble to, with a vengeance. But I mean to have a good time all the same. Even though it"s only Leipzig, one can have a jolly enough time."
Again there was silence. Louise flushed. "I suppose you"re hard at work already?"
"Yes. Got started yesterday. Frogs, don"t you know?--the effect of a rare poison on frogs."
This trivial exchange of words stung Maurice. Herries"s manner seemed to him intolerably familiar, lacking in respect; and he kept telling himself, as he listened, that, having returned from England, the fellow"s first thought had been of her. He had not opened his lips since entering; he sat staring at them, forgetful of good manners; and, after a little, both began to feel ill at ease. Their eyes met for a moment in this sensation, and Herries cleared his throat.
"What did you do with yourself in summer?" he queried, and could not restrain a smile, at the fashion in which the other fellow was giving himself away. "You weren"t in England at all, I think you said? We hoped we might meet there, don"t you remember? Too bad that I had to go off without saying good-bye."
"No, I changed my mind and stayed here. But I shouldn"t do it again. It was so hot."
"Must have been simply beastly."
Maurice jerked his arm; a vase which was standing at his elbow upset, and the water trickled to the floor. Neither offered to help him; he had to stoop and mop it up with his handkerchief.
For a few moments longer, the conversation was eked out. Then Herries rose. With her hand in his, he said earnestly: "Now you must be merciful and relent. I shan"t give up hope. Any time in the next fortnight is time enough, remember. "Pon my word, I"ve dreamt of those waltzes of ours ever since. And the floor at the PRUSSE is still better, don"t you know? You won"t have the heart not to come."
From under her lids, Louise shot a rapid glance at Maurice. He, too, had risen; he was standing stiff, pale, and solemn, visibly waiting only till Herries had gone, to make himself disagreeable. She smiled.
"Don"t ask me to give an answer to-day. I"ll let you know--will that do? A fortnight is such a long time. And then you"ve forgotten the chief thing. I must see if I have anything to wear."
"Oh, I say! ... if that"s all! Don"t let that bother you. That black thing you had on last time was ripping--awfully jolly, don"t you know?"
Louise laughed. "Well, perhaps," she said, as she opened the door.
"Good business!" responded Herries.
He nodded in Maurice"s direction, and they went out of the room together. Maurice heard their voices in laughing rejoinder, heard them take leave of each other at the halldoor. After that there was a pause.
Louise lingered, before returning, to open a letter that was lying on the hall-table; she also spoke to Fraulein Grunhut. When she did come back, all trace of animation had gone from her face. She busied herself at once with the flowers he had disarranged, and this done, ordered her hair before the hanging gla.s.s. Maurice followed her movements with a sarcastic smile.
Suddenly she turned and confronted him.
"Maurice! ... for Heaven"s sake, don"t glare at me like that! If you"ve anything to say, please say it, and be done with it."
"You know well enough what I have to say." His voice was husky.
"Indeed, I don"t."
"Well you ought to."
"Ought to?--No: there"s a limit to everything! Take your hat off that table!--What did you mean by bursting into the room when you heard some one was here? And, as if that weren"t enough--to let everybody see how much at home you are--your behaviour--your unbearable want of manners..." She stopped, and pressed her handkerchief to her lips.
"I believed you didn"t care what people thought," he threw in, morosely defiant.
"That"s a poor excuse for your rudeness."
"Well, at least tell me what that fool wanted here."
"Have you no ears? Couldn"t you hear that he has just come back from England, and is calling on his friends?"
"Do you expect me to believe that?"
"Maurice!"
"Oh, he has always been after you--since that night. It"s only because he wasn"t here long enough ... and his manner shows what he thinks of you ... and what he means."
"What do YOU mean? Do you wish to say it"s my doing that he came here to-day?--Don"t you believe me?" she demanded, as he did not answer.
"And you in that half-dressed condition!"
"Could I dress before him? How abominable you are!"
He tried to explain. "Yes. Because ... I hate the sight of the fellow.--You didn"t know he was coming, did you, or you wouldn"t have seen him?"