"Well--what?"
"If only it weren"t for the lonely evenings!"
A silence ensued. This was a sore point and had always been. He knew it well. But he had to have his evenings to himself. There was nothing to be done about that.
"You musn"t think me immodest in my demands," she went on in hasty exculpation. "I"m not even aiming my remarks at you ... I"m only thinking aloud.... But you see, I can"t get any real foothold in society until--until my affairs are more clarified.... To run about the drawing-rooms as an example of frivolous heedlessness--that"s not my way.... I can always hear them whisper behind me: "She doesn"t take it much to heart, that shows ..." No, I"d rather stay at home. I have no friends either and what chance had I to make them? You were always my one and only friend.... My books remain. And that"s very well by day ... but when the lamps are lit I begin to throb and ache and run about ... and I listen for the trill of the door-bell. But no one comes, nothing--except the evening paper. And that"s only in winter.
Now it"s brought before dusk. And in the end there"s nothing worth while in it.... And so life goes day after day. At last one creeps into bed at half-past nine and, of course, has a wretched night."
"Well, but how am I to help you, dear child?" he asked thoughtfully.
He was touched by her quiet, almost serene complaint. "If we took to pa.s.sing our evenings together, scandal would soon have us by the throat, and then--woe to you!"
Her eager eyes gazed bravely at him.
"Well," she said at last, "suppose----"
"What?"
"Never mind. I don"t want you to think me unwomanly. And what I"ve been describing to you is, after all, only a symptom. There"s a kind of restlessness in me that I can"t explain.... If I were of a less active temper, things would be better.... It sounds paradoxical, but just because I have so much activity in me, do I weary so quickly.
Goethe said once----"
He raised his hands in laughing protest.
She was really frightened.
"Ah, yes, forgive me," she cried. "All that was to be swept out....
How forgetful one can be...."
Smiling, she leaned her head against his shoulder and was not to be persuaded from her silence.
Chapter VI
"There are delicate boundaries within the realm of the eternal womanly,"--thus Niebeldingk reflected next day,--"in which one is sorely puzzled as to what one had better put into an envelope: a poem or a cheque."
His latest adventure--the cause of these reflections--had blossomed, the evening before, like the traditional rose on the dungheap.
One of his friends who had travelled about the world a good deal and who now a.s.sumed the part of the full-blown Parisian, had issued invitations to a house-warming in his new bachelor-apartment. He had invited a number of his gayer friends and ladies exclusively from so-called artistic circles. So far all was quite Parisian. Only the journalists who might, next morning, have proclaimed the glory of the festivity to the world--these were excluded. Berlin, for various reasons, did not seem an appropriate place for that.
It was a rather dreary sham orgy. Even chaperones were present.
Several ladies had carefully brought them and they could scarcely be put out. Other ladies even thought it inc.u.mbent upon them to ask after the wives of the gentlemen present and to turn up their noses when it appeared that these were conspicuous by their absence. It was upon this occasion, however, that some beneficent chance a.s.signed to Niebeldingk a sighing blonde who remained at his side all evening.
Her name was Meta, she belonged to one of the "best families" of Posen, she lived in Berlin with her mother who kept a boarding house for ladies of the theatre. She herself nursed the ardent desire to dedicate herself to art, for "the ideal" had always been the guiding star of her existence.
At the beginning of supper she expressed herself with a fine indignation concerning the ladies present into whose midst--she a.s.sured him eagerly--she had fallen through sheer accident. Later she thawed out, a.s.sumed a friendly companionableness to these despised individuals and, in order to raise Niebeldingk"s delight to the highest point, admitted with maidenly frankness the indescribable and mysterious attraction toward him which she had felt at the first glance.
Of course, her principles were impregnable. He mustn"t doubt that. She would rather seek a moist death in the waves than.... and so forth.
Although she made this solemn proclamation over the dessert, the consequence of it all was an intimate visit to Niebeldingk"s dwelling which came to a bitter sweet end at three o"clock in the morning with gentle tears concerning the wickedness of men in general and of himself in particular....
An attack of _katzenjammer_--such as is scarcely ever spared worldly people of forty--threw a sobering shadow upon this event. The shadow crept forward too, and presaged annoyance.
He was such an old hand now, and didn"t even know into what category she really fitted. Was it, after all, impossible that behind all this frivolity the desire to take up the struggle for existence on cleanly terms stuck in her little head?
At all events he determined to spare the possible wounding of outraged womanliness and to wait before putting any final stamp upon the nature of their relations. Hence he set out to play the tender lover by means of the well-tried device of a bunch of Indian lilies.
When he was about to give the order for the flowers to John who always, upon these occasions, a.s.sumed a conscientiously stupid expression, a new doubt overcame him.
Was he not desecrating the gift which had brought consolation and absolution to many a remorseful heart, by sending it to a girl who, for all he knew, played a sentimental part only as a matter of decent form? ... Wasn"t there grave danger of her a.s.suming an undue self-importance when she felt that she was taken tragically?
"Well, what did it matter? ... A few flowers! ..."
Early on the evening of the next day Meta reappeared. She was dressed in sombre black. She wept persistently and made preparations to stay.
Niebeldingk gave her to understand that, in the first place, he had no more time for her that evening, and that, in the second place, she would do well to go home at a proper hour and spare herself the reproaches of her mother.
"Oh, my little mother, my little mother," she wailed. "How shall I ever present myself to her sight again? Keep me, my beloved! I can never approach my, mother again."
He rang for his hat and gloves.
When she saw that he was serious she wept a few more perfunctory tears and went.
Her visits repeated themselves and didn"t become any more delightful.
On the contrary ... the heart-broken maiden gave him to understand that her lost honour could be restored only by the means of a speedy marriage. This exhausted his patience. He saw that he had been thoroughly taken in and so, observing all necessary considerateness, he sent her definitely about her business.
Next day the "little mother" appeared on the scene. She was a dignified woman of fifty, equipped as the Genius of Vengeance, exceedingly glib of tongue and by no means sentimental.
As she belonged to one of the first families of Posen, it was her duty to lay particular stress upon the honour of her daughter whom he had lured to his house and there wickedly seduced. ... She was prepared to repel any overtures toward a compromise. She belonged to one of the best families of Posen and was not prepared to sell her daughter"s virtue. The only possible way of adjusting the matter was an immediate marriage.
Thereupon she began to scream and scold and John, who acted as master of ceremonies, escorted her with a patronising smile to the door....
Next came the visits of an old gentleman in a Prince Albert and the ribbon of some decoration in his b.u.t.ton-hole.--John had strict orders to admit no strangers. But the old gentleman was undaunted. He came morning, noon and night and finally settled down on the stairs where Niebeldingk could not avoid meeting him. He was the uncle of Miss Meta, a former servant of the government and a knight of several honourable orders. As such it was his duty to demand the immediate rest.i.tution of his niece"s honour, else--Niebeldingk simply turned his back and the knight of several honourable orders trotted, grumbling, down the stairs.
Up to this point Niebeldingk had striven to regard the whole business in a humorous light. It now began It now began to promise serious annoyance. He told the story at his club and the men laughed boisterously, but no one knew anything to the detriment of Miss Meta.
She had been introduced by a lady who played small parts at a large theatre and important parts at a small one. The lady was called to account for her protegee. She refused to speak.
"It"s all the fault of those accursed Indian lilies," Niebeldingk grumbled one afternoon at his window as he watched the knight of various honourable orders parade the street as undaunted as ever. "Had I treated her with less delicacy, she would never have risked playing the part of an innocent victim."
At that moment John announced Fritz von Ehrenberg.
The boy came in dressed in an admirably fitting summer suit. He was radiant with youth and strength, victory gleamed in his eye; a hymn of victory seemed silently singing on his lips.
"Well Fritz, you seem merry," said Niebeldingk and patted the boy"s shoulder. He could not suppress a smile of sad envy.
"Don"t ask me! Why shouldn"t I be happy? Life is so beautiful, yes, beautiful. Only you musn"t have any dealings with women. That plays the deuce with one."
"You don"t know yourself how right you are," Niebeldingk sighed, looking out of the corner of an eye at the knight of several honourable orders who had now taken up his station in the shelter of the house opposite.