"And since you came to see me twice daily," she returned and gazed at the floor with a sad irony.
"We have both changed greatly, Alice."
"We have indeed, Richard."
A silence ensued.
His eyes wandered to the opposite wall.... His own picture, framed in silvery maple-wood, hung there.... Behind the frame appeared a bunch of blossoms, long faded and shrivelled to a brownish, indistinguishable heap.
These two alone knew the significance of the flowers....
"Were you at least happy in those days, Alice?"
"You know I am always happy, Richard."
"Oh yes, yes; I know your philosophy. But I meant happy with me, through me?"
She stroked her delicate nose thoughtfully. The mocking expression about the corners of her mouth became accentuated.
"I hardly think so, Richard," she said after an interval. "I was too much afraid of you ... I seemed so stupid in comparison to you and I feared that you would despise me." "That fear, at least, you have overcome very thoroughly?" he asked.
"Not wholly, Richard. Things have only shifted their basis. Just as, in those days, I felt ashamed of my ignorance, so now I feel ashamed--no, that isn"t the right word.... But all this stuff that I store up in my head seems to weigh upon me in my relations with you. I seem to be a nuisance with it.... You men, especially mature men like yourself, seem to know all these things better, even when you don"t know them.... The precise form in which a given thought is presented to us may be new to you, but the thought itself you have long digested. It"s for this reason that I feel intimidated whenever I approach you with my pursuits. "You might better have held your peace," I say to myself. But what am I to do? I"m so profoundly interested!"
"So you really need the society of a rather stupid fellow, one to whom all this is new and who will furnish a grateful audience?"
"Stupid? No," she answered, "but he ought to be inexperienced. He ought himself to want to learn things.... He ought not to a.s.sume a compa.s.sionate expression as who should say: "Ah, my dear child, if you knew what I know, and how indifferent all those things are to me!" ...
For these things are not indifferent, Richard, not to me, at least.... And for the sake of the joy I take in them, you ..."
"Strange how she sees through me," he reflected, "I wonder she clings to me as she does."
And while he was trying to think of something that might help her, the dear boy came into his mind who had to-day divulged to him the sorrows of youth and whom the unconscious desire for a higher plane of life had driven weeping through the streets.
"I know of some one for you."
Her expression was serious.
"You know of some one for me," she repeated with painful deliberateness.
"Don"t misunderstand me. It"s a playfellow, a pupil--something in the nature of a pastime, anything you will."
He told her the story of _Siegfried_ and the two seamstresses.
She laughed heartily.
"I was afraid you wanted to be rid of me," she said, laying her forehead for a few moments against his sleeve.
"Shame on you," he said, carelessly stroking her hair. "But what do you think? Shall I bring the young fellow?"
"You may very well bring him," she answered. There was a look of pain about her mouth. "Doesn"t one even train young poodles?"
Chapter IV.
Three days later, at the same hour of the afternoon, the student, Fritz von Ehrenberg entered Niebeldingk"s study.
"I have summoned you, dear friend, because I want to introduce you to a charming young woman," Niebeldingk said, arising from his desk.
"Now?" Fritz asked, sharply taken aback.
"Why not?"
"Why, I"d have to get my--my afternoon coat first and fix myself up a bit. What is the lady to think of me?"
"I"ll take care of that. Furthermore, you probably know her, at least by reputation."
He mentioned the name of her husband which was known far and wide in their native province.
Fritz knew the whole story.
"Poor lady!" he said. "Papa and Mama have often felt sorry for her. I suppose her husband is still living."
Niebeldingk nodded.
"People all said that you were going to marry her."
"Is _that_ what people said?" "Yes, and Papa thought it would be a piece of great good fortune."
"For whom?"
"I beg your pardon, I suppose that was tactless, Herr von Niebeldingk."
"It was, dear Fritz.--But don"t worry about it, just come."
The introduction went smoothly. Fritz behaved as became the son of a good family, was respectful but not stiff, and answered her friendly questions briefly and to the point.
"He"s no discredit to me," Niebeldingk thought.
As for Alice, she treated her young guest with a smiling, motherly care which was new in her and which filled Niebeldingk with quiet pleasure.... On other occasions she had a.s.sumed toward young men a tone of wise, faint interest which meant clearly: "I will exhaust your possibilities and then drop you." To-day she showed a genuine sympathy which, though its purpose may have been to test him the more sharply, seemed yet to bear witness to the pure and free humanity of her soul.
She asked him after his parental home and was charmed with his nave rapture at escaping the psychical atmosphere of the cradle-songs of his mother"s house. She was also pleased with his att.i.tude toward his younger brothers and sisters, equally devoid, as it was, of exaggeration or condescension. Everything about him seemed to her simple and sane and full of ardour after information and maturity.
Niebeldingk sat quietly in his corner ready, at need, to smooth over any outbreak of uncouth youthfulness. But there was no occasion. Fritz confined himself within the limits of modest liberty and used his mind vigorously but with devout respect and delighted obedience. Once only, when the question of the necessity of authority came up, did he go far.
"I don"t give a hang for any authority," he said. "Even the mild compulsion of what are called high-bred manners may go to the deuce for me!"
Niebeldingk was about to interfere with some reconciling remark when he observed, to his astonishment, that Alice who, as a rule, was bitterly hostile to all strident unconventionality, had taken no offence.