"By the way, do you remember what I said yesterday about the Elmreichs?"
"Yes, I do. You said horrid things." Her voice changed.
"About a Baron Elmreich. But he had a sister who made a hash of her life. I saw her once or twice in Berlin. She was dancing at the Wintergarten, and under her own name."
"Poor thing. But it doesn"t interest me."
"Don"t get angry yet."
"But it doesn"t interest me. And why shouldn"t she dance? I knew several people who ended by dancing at London Wintergartens."
"You admit, then, that it is an end?"
"It is hardly a beginning," conceded Anna.
"She was so amazingly like your baroness would be if she painted and wore a wig----"
"That you are convinced they must be sisters. Thank you. Now what do you suppose is the good of telling me that?" And she stood still and faced him, her eyes flashing.
Do what he would, Axel could not help smiling at her wrath. It was the wrath of a mother whose child has been hurt by someone on purpose, "I wish," he said, "that you would not be so angry when I tell you things that might be important for you to know. If your baroness is really the sister of the dancing baroness----"
"But she is not. She told me last night that she has no brothers and sisters. And she wrote it in the letters before she came. Do you think it is a praiseworthy occupation for a man, doing his best to find out disgraceful things about a very poor and very helpless woman?"
"No, I do not," said Axel decidedly. "Under any other circ.u.mstances I would leave the poor lady to take her chance. But do consider," he said, following her, for she had begun to walk on quickly again, "do consider your unusual position. You are so young to be living away from your friends, and so young and inexperienced to be at the head of a home for homeless women--you ought to be quite extraordinarily particular about the antecedents of the people you take in. It would be most unpleasant if it got about that they were not respectable."
"But they are respectable," said Anna, looking straight before her.
"A sister who dances at the Wintergarten----"
"Did I not tell you that she has no sister?"
Axel shrugged his shoulders. "The resemblance is so striking that they might be twins," he said.
"Then you think she says what is not true?"
"How can I tell?"
Anna stopped again and faced him. "Well, suppose it were true--suppose it is her sister, and she has tried to hide it--do you know how I should feel about it?"
"Properly scandalised, I hope."
"I should love her all the more. Oh, I should love her twice as much!
Why, think of the misery and the shame--poor, poor little woman--trying to hide it all, bearing it all by herself--she must have loved her sister, she must have loved her brother. It isn"t true, of course, but supposing it were, could you tell me _any_ reason why I should turn my back on her?"
She stood looking at him, her eyes full of angry tears.
He did not answer. If that was the way she felt, what could he do?
"I never understood," she went on pa.s.sionately, "why the innocent should be punished. Do you suppose a woman would _like_ her brother to cheat and then shoot himself? Or _like_ her sister to go and dance? But if they do do these things, besides her own grief and horror, she is to be shunned by everybody as though she were infectious. Is that fair? Is that right? Is it in the least Christian?"
"No, of course it is not. It is very hard and very ugly, but it is quite natural. An old woman in a strong position might take such a person up, perhaps, and comfort her and love her as you propose to do, but a young girl ought not to do anything of the sort."
Anna turned away with a quick movement of impatience and walked on. "If you argue on the young girl basis," she said, "we shall never be able to talk about a single thing. When will you leave off about my young girlishness? In five years I shall be thirty--will you go on till I have reached that blessed age?"
"I have no right to go on to you about anything," said Axel.
"Precisely," said Anna.
"But please remember that I owe an enormous debt of grat.i.tude to your uncle, and make allowances for me if I am over-zealous in my anxiety to shield his niece from possible unpleasantness."
"Then don"t keep telling me I am too young to do good. It is ludicrous, considering my age, besides being dreadful. You will say that, I believe, till I am thirty or forty, and then when you can"t decently say it any more, and I still want to do things, you"ll say I"m old enough to know better."
Axel laughed. Anna"s dimples appeared for an instant, but vanished again.
"Now," she said, "I am not going to talk about poor little Else any more. Let her distant relations dance till they are tired--it concerns n.o.body here at all."
"Little Else?"
"The baroness. Of course we shall call each other by our Christian names. We are sisters."
"I see."
"You don"t see at all," she said, with a swift sideward glance at him.
"My dear Miss Estcourt----"
"If my plan succeeds it will certainly not be because I have been encouraged."
"I think," he said with sudden warmth, "that the plan is beautiful, and could only have been made by a beautiful nature."
"Oh?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Anna, surprised. A flush of gratification came into her face. The heartiness of the tone surprised her even more than the words.
She stood still to look at him. "It is a pity," she said softly, "that nearly always when we are together we get angry, for you can be so kind when you choose. Say nice things to me. Let us be happy. I love being happy."
She held out her hand, smiling. He took it and gave it a hearty, matter of fact shake, and dropped it. It was very awkward, but he was struggling with an overpowering desire to take her in his arms and kiss her, and not let her go again till she had said she would marry him. It was exceedingly awkward, for he knew quite well that if he did so it would be the end of all things.
He turned rather white, and thrust his hands deep into his pockets.
"Yes, the plan is beautiful," he said cheerfully, "but very unpractical.
And the nature that made it is, I am sure, beautiful, but of course quite as unpractical as the plan." And he smiled down at her, a broad, genial smile.
"I know I don"t set about things the right way," she said. "If only you wouldn"t worry about the pasts of my poor friends and what their relations may have done in pre-historic times, you could help me so much."
To his relief she began to walk on again. "Princess Ludwig is a sensible and experienced woman," he said, "and can help you in many ways that I cannot."
"But she only looks at the _praktische_ side of a question, and that is really only one side. I am too unpractical, I know, but she isn"t unpractical enough. But I don"t want to talk about her. What I wanted to say was, that once these poor ladies have been chosen and are here, the time for making inquiries is over, isn"t it? As far as I am concerned, anyhow, it is. I shall never forsake them, never, _never_. So please don"t try to tell me things about them--it doesn"t change my feelings towards them, and only makes me angry with you. Which is a pity. I want to live at peace with my neighbour."
"Well?" he said, as she paused. "That, I take it, is a prelude to something else."
"Yes, it is. It"s a prelude to Karlchen."