"Why do you say that?" she asked, still with her back to him.
"Say what?"
"That when she gets over this she will have all those nice things surrounding her. You told me when first she came, that if she really were the poor dancing woman"s sister I ought on no account to keep her here. Don"t you remember?"
"Quite well. But am I not right in supposing that you _will_ keep her?
You see, I know you better now than I did then."
"If she liked being here--if it made her happy--I would keep her in defiance of the whole world."
"But as it is----?"
She came to him with a cup of cold coffee in her hands. He took it, and stirred it mechanically.
"As it is," she said, "she is very ill, and has to get well again before we begin to decide things. Perhaps," she added, looking up at him wistfully, "this illness will change her?"
He shook his head. "I am afraid it won"t," he said. "For a little while, perhaps--for a few weeks at first while she still remembers your nursing, and then--why, the old self over again."
He put the untasted coffee down on the nearest table. "There is no getting away," he said, coming back to her, "from one"s old self. That is why this work you have undertaken is so hopeless."
"Hopeless?" she exclaimed in a startled voice. He was saying aloud what she had more than once almost--never quite--whispered in her heart of hearts.
"You ought to have begun with the baroness thirty years ago, to have had a chance of success."
"Why, she was five years old then, and I am sure quite cheerful. And I wasn"t there at all."
"Five ought really to be the average age of the Chosen. What is the use of picking out unhappy persons well on in life, and thinking you are going to make them happy? How can you _make_ them be happy? If it had been possible to their natures they would have been so long ago, however poor they were. And they would not have been so poor or so unhappy if they had been willing to work. Work is such an admirable tonic. The princess works, and finds life very tolerable. You will never succeed with people like Frau von Treumann and the baroness. They belong to a cla.s.s of persons that will grumble even in heaven. You could easily make those who are happy already still happier, for it is in them--the grat.i.tude and appreciation for life and its blessings; but those of course are not the people you want to get at. You think I am preaching?"
he asked abruptly.
"But are you not?"
"It is because I cannot stand by and watch you bruising yourself."
"Oh," said Anna, "you are a man, and can fight your way well enough through life. You are quite comfortable and prosperous. How can you sympathise with women like Else? Because she is not young you haven"t a feeling for her--only indifference. You talk of my bruising myself--you don"t mind her bruises. And if I were forty, how sure I am that you wouldn"t mind mine."
"Yes, I would," said Axel, with such conviction that she added quickly, "Well--I don"t want to talk about bruises."
"I hope the baroness will soon get over the cruel ones that singularly brutal young man has inflicted. You agree with me that he _is_ a singularly brutal young man?"
"Absolutely."
"And I hope that when she is well again you will make her as happy as she is capable of being."
"If I knew how!"
"Why, by letting her go away, and giving her enough to live on decently by herself. It would be quite the best course to take, both for you and for her."
Anna looked down. "I have been thinking the same thing," she said in a low voice; she felt as though she were hauling down her flag.
"Perhaps you will let me help."
"Help?"
"Let me contribute. Why may I not be charitable too? If we join together it will be to her advantage. She need not know. And you are not a millionaire."
"Nor are you," said Anna, smiling up at him.
"We unfortunates who live by our potatoes are never millionaires. But still we can be charitable."
"But why should _you_ help the baroness? I found her out, and brought her here, and I am the only person responsible for her."
"It will be much more costly than just having her here."
"I don"t mind, if only she is happy. And I will not have you pay the cost of my experiments in philanthropy."
"Is Frau von Treumann happy?" he asked abruptly.
"No," said Anna, with a faint smile.
"Is Fraulein Kuhrauber happy?"
"No."
"Tell me one thing more," he said; "are _you_ happy?"
Anna blushed. "That is a queer question," she said. "Why should I not be happy?"
"But are you?"
She looked at him, hesitating. Then she said, in a very small voice, "No."
Axel took two or three turns up and down the room. "I knew it," he said; and added something in German under his breath about _Weiber_. "After this, you will not, I suppose, receive young Treumann again?" he asked, coming to a halt in front of her.
"Never again."
"You have a difficult time before you, then, with his mother."
Anna blushed. "I am afraid I have," she admitted.
"You have a very difficult few weeks before you," he said. "The baroness probably dangerously ill, and Frau von Treumann very angry with you. I know Princess Ludwig does all she can, but still you are alone--against odds."
The odds, too, were greater than she knew. All day he had been officially engaged in making inquiries into the origin of the fire the night before, and every circ.u.mstance pointed to Klutz as the culprit. He had sent for Klutz, and Klutz, they said, had gone home. Then he sent a telegram after him, and his father replied that he was neither expecting his son nor was he ill. Klutz, then, had disappeared in order to avoid the consequences of what he had done; but it was only a question of days before the police brought him back again, and then he would tell the whole absurd story, and Pomerania would chuckle at Anna"s expense. The thought of this chuckling made Axel cold with rage.
He stood looking out of the window at the parched garden, the drooping lilac-bushes, the hazy island across the water. The wind had dropped, and a gray film had drawn across the sky. At the bottom of the garden, under a chestnut-tree, Miss Leech was sewing, while Letty read aloud to her. The monotonous drone of Letty"s reading, interrupted by her loud complaints each time a mosquito stung her, reached Axel"s ears as he stood there in silence. A grim struggle was going on within him. He loved Anna with a pa.s.sion that would no longer be hidden; and he knew that he must somehow hide it. He was so certain that she did not care about him. He was so certain that she would never dream of marrying him.
And yet if ever a woman needed the protection of an all-enfolding love it was Anna at that moment "That child down there has made a pretty fair amount of mischief for a person of her age," he burst out with a vehemence that startled Anna.
"What child?" she said, coming up behind him and looking over his shoulder.