CHAPTER VI.
When the brothers entered the drawing-room they found it deserted, but Frida stood outside on the terrace. She could not have heard them approach, for as Sandow pa.s.sed out at the French window she turned hastily round, and the traces of tears were clearly seen. She rapidly pa.s.sed her handkerchief over her face, but it was impossible to conceal her emotion. It was not usual with the merchant to display much consideration for the feelings of others, but here he could easily connect the girl"s distress with the painful conversation at the dinner-table, and in a sudden accession of sympathy he tried to help her through her trouble.
"You need not be so anxious to hide your tears, Miss Palm," said he.
"Here in a strange country you feel home-sick, I am sure."
He seemed to have touched the right chord, for in the trembling tone with which Frida replied lay the plainest proof of its truth.
"Yes, an inexpressible home-sickness!"
"Naturally, you have been such a short time here," said Sandow, carelessly. "All Germans feel that at first, but it soon pa.s.ses away.
If one is lucky in the New World one is glad to forget old times, and in the end rejoices at having turned one"s back on them. Do not look so shocked, as if I had said something monstrous. I speak from my own experience."
Frida certainly had looked shocked. Her eyes, yet moist with tears, shot forth a glance of scorn and dislike as she hastily cried--
"You cannot be serious, Mr. Sandow. I shall forget, give up my country, even the recollection of it? Never, never!"
Sandow looked rather surprised at this pa.s.sionate protest from the quiet girl; round his lips played a half contemptuous, half pitiful smile as he replied--
"I reckon you well disposed to learn that. The misfortune of most Germans here is that they hold so fast to the past, that the present and future are allowed to glide away unnoticed. Home-sickness is one of those sickly, affected sentiments which are sometimes considered as poetic and interesting, while in real life they are only hindrances.
Whoever will get on here must keep his head clear and his eyes open, in order to seize and profit by every chance. You are compelled by circ.u.mstances to seek for a living here, and this weak longing and dreaming will not help you in that."
Hard and heartless though these words might sound, they were spoken with perfect sincerity. The unfortunate remark about his business friend, which might have been expected to irritate and embitter the merchant, seemed, on the contrary, to have awakened an interest in the girl, whom till then he had scarcely observed.
Frida gave no spoken contradiction to the lesson he condescended to give her, and which chilled her inmost heart. But her questioning, reproachful look said enough, and these serious, dark eyes seemed to produce an extraordinary effect on the usually unimpressionable man.
This time he did not avoid the look, but bore it unflinchingly.
Suddenly his voice took involuntarily a milder tone, and he said--
"You are still young, Miss Palm, very young, far too young to wander about the world alone. Was there, then, no one in your native land who could offer you a shelter?"
"No, no one!" came almost inaudibly from the lips of the girl.
"Of course--you are an orphan. I heard that from my niece. And the relation who invited you to New York died while you were on your way there?"
The slight inclination of the head which Frida made might be interpreted in the affirmative, but a burning blush overspread her face, and her eyes sought the ground.
"That is really very sad. How was it possible to find a proper refuge in New York, where you were quite a stranger?"
The flush on the girl"s cheeks became still deeper.
"My fellow-travellers took charge of me," she answered hesitatingly.
"They took me to a countryman, the pastor of a German church, where I was most kindly received."
"And this gentleman recommended you to my niece. I know her mother had numerous connections in New York, with some of whom Jessie keeps up a correspondence. She feels such warm sympathy for you, that you need have no anxiety for the future. With the recommendation of Miss Clifford, it will not be difficult to find a suitable place."
Frida appeared as unpractised in falsehood as Jessie. With the latter she had not been obliged to use the deception which was necessary in speaking to the master of the house. Jessie had from the first been acquainted with circ.u.mstances which must be carefully concealed from Sandow, even now when he began to display some interest in her. But the manner of the girl showed how hard her part was. Sandow knew her shy and taciturn, but this obstinate silence appeared to annoy him.
As he received no reply, he turned abruptly away, and went into the garden. Frida drew a long breath, as if released from some burden, and returned to the drawing-room. Here she was met by Gustave, who, though remaining in the background, and apparently quite indifferent to the conversation, had, in reality, not lost a word of it.
"Listen to me, Frida, I am not at all satisfied with you," he began in a tone of reproof. "What was the object of your coming here? What do you mean by avoiding my brother at every opportunity, actually running away from him? You make no attempt at a nearer acquaintance; the rare moments when he is approachable are allowed to pa.s.s unused by, and you maintain complete silence when he speaks to you. I have smoothed the way for you, and now you must try to walk in it alone."
Frida had listened to this lecture in silence; but now she drew herself up and said hastily--
"I cannot!"
"What can you not do?"
"Keep the promise which I made to you. You know you half forced it from me. Against my will am I here, against my will have I undertaken to play the part to which you have condemned me. But I cannot carry it through, it is beyond my strength. Let me go home again, here I can do no good."
"Indeed?" cried Gustave angrily. "That is a brilliant idea. For this have I crossed the sea with you, and made deadly enemies of my publisher and the editor, who were determined not to let me go. For this I sit patiently at the office desk under the weight of Miss Clifford"s supreme contempt, and all that Miss Frida may declare, once for all, "I will stay no longer." But it won"t do. Surely you are not going to cast away your arms after the struggle of one week. On the contrary, I must request that you will stay and carry out what we have begun."
The girl"s dark eyes rested sadly and earnestly on the speaker, as if reproving his careless tone.
"Do not call me ungrateful! I know what I owe you, what you have done for me; but the task is harder than I had thought. I can feel no affection for this cold, hard man, and he will never feel any for me, of that I have the strongest conviction. Had I once seen a kindly glance in his eyes, once heard a cordial word from his lips, I might have drawn nearer to him; but this frigid character, that nothing can warm, nothing can break through, drives me ever farther and farther away."
Instead of replying, Gustave took her hand, and drew her beside him on the sofa.
"Have I ever said that the task would be easy?" he asked. "It is hard enough, harder than I could have believed, but not impossible. With this shy avoidance of him, you will certainly attain nothing. You must grapple with the foe; he is so strongly mailed that he can only be taken by storm."
"I cannot!" cried Frida pa.s.sionately. "I tell you that no voice within me speaks for him, and if I can neither give nor receive love, what shall I do here? Steal my way into a home and fortune. You cannot wish that, and if you did, I would refuse both, were they offered to me with the heartless indifference with which he permitted me a refuge in his house."
With the last words she sprang from her seat. Gustave quietly drew her down again.
"Now you are getting beyond all bounds, and the end will be an obstinate refusal. If I did not know from whom you take that wilful obstinacy, that pa.s.sionate temper which lies under all your outward reserve, I would give you another sort of lecture. But these faults are hereditary, it is no use fighting against them."
The girl seized his hand and held it in both her own, as she entreated--
"Let me away, let me go home again, I beg, I beg! What does it matter if I am poor. I can work. I am young, and you will not desert me.
Thousands are in the same position, and must struggle with life themselves. I will rather a thousand times do that than beg for a recognition which is withheld from me. I only followed your wishes, when you brought me to your brother; I need neither him nor his riches."
"But he needs you," said Gustave impressively. "And he needs your love more than you believe."
The girl"s lips trembled with a bitter smile.
"There you are certainly wrong! I know little of the world or of men; but I know very well that Mr. Sandow neither needs nor wishes for love.
He loves nothing in the world, not Jessie, who has grown up under his eyes almost like a daughter of his own; not you, his own brother. I have seen only too plainly how far he is from you both. He knows nothing but the desire for wealth, for gain, and yet he is rich enough.
Is it true, really true, that he is connected with this Jenkins, that such a man belongs to his friends?"
"Child, you understand nothing about that," said Gustave, evasively.
"Whoever, like my brother, has seen all the hopes of his life shattered, whose every blessing has become a curse, every pleasure a disappointment, either sinks utterly under such a catastrophe, or he leaves his former self entirely behind, and goes on his way another man. I know what he was twelve years ago, and what was then living in him cannot be quite dead. You shall awaken it, you shall at all events try, and that is why I have brought you here."
The deep earnestness with which these words were spoken, did not fail of their effect on Frida; but she said, with a shake of the head--
"I am, and must remain a stranger to him. You have yourself forbidden me to let him suspect anything of our circ.u.mstances."