With a kiss on your slim, refreshingly large hand,
Your much improved, Walter von Prell."
Lilly found this letter the second morning after the great event in the shape of a pellet stuck into the mouth of the pea-shooter, which leaned innocently against the jamb of the balcony door.
It did not provide her with unqualified satisfaction. There were turns of expression in it which raised doubts as to the sincerity of his conversion. Nevertheless, his a.s.severations were so plain and unmistakable she felt she might take the core to be sound. It was simply that he could not refrain from his wanton way of speaking, which the person who loved him would have to acquiesce in.
She kissed the letter and stuck it in her bosom, to lie there warm and secure awhile before she tore it up.
In the afternoon she took a walk about the grounds, and actually found under her balcony a long heap of pine branches from between which a few ladder rungs peeped at her familiarly.
Rejoiced at this token of his pain she ran off to the park, now soggy from the autumn rains, and sauntered about, marvelling from time to time that renunciation was so easy.
After all it was not so easy.
She discovered it was not in the course of the next few days, when life began to lose its content and intensity, when the hours jogged along in dreary autumnal greyness, and the evening came and the morning came without a reason why.
Moreover, she failed to find that support in Anna von Schwertfeger which she had expected to. Although her friend withdrew none of the promises she had made, yet a shadowy wall circ.u.mscribed her, which no insinuating love could penetrate. She seemed almost to fear that too great familiarity with Lilly would bring down upon her own head the sin of the adulteress.
Lilly had much to suffer from the colonel these days. She, like the rest, now fell a victim to his attacks of fury. And what was worse, in moments of quiet self-abandon, she would suddenly feel his dark, lowering look fastened upon her, betokening many a thought in his mind which boded her no good.
She began to fear he had gotten wind of her affair with Von Prell; but Anna pooh-poohed the idea.
"The symptoms would be rather different," she remarked. "Such a suspicion would not pa.s.s without leaving a few broken chairs or lamps behind. My opinion is, he feels bored at home. He"s hankering for the regiment, and holds you responsible for the change in his life. I sincerely hope he doesn"t come to hate you on that account. In that event only two courses would be open to you: separation or suicide."
Here was small comfort. And no less dispiriting was his hesitation to introduce her to the neighbours. Long before, Miss von Schwertfeger had declared Lilly"s education complete. No colonel"s wife or high-born dame could now find fault with her manners. But the colonel looked at her distrustfully, and deferred the visits from week to week.
Lilly kept up bravely in all her tribulations. Faith in herself and, still more, faith in him, gave her peace and strength.
She regulated her days strictly according to rule with a fixed occupation for each hour. She learned Goethe"s poems by heart, studied Shakespeare in English, read histories of art, and lost herself in the mazes of the French Revolution.
She took special delight in a large geographical work, in which there were many pictures of southern ports, tropical forests, and bald, rocky mountain ranges.
There were also full ill.u.s.trations of Italy--pious pilgrims on crusades, enigmatic churches, and slender-columned porticos, which filled her with an ardent longing to be there.
When she travelled great distances into strange countries and looked about timidly to find her way back again, whom did she see standing there all of a sudden, blond, freckled, in a black and white checked fall suit, making deep reverences? "As my lady commands."
The tears welled up in her eyes.
Her one diversion was to stand behind her balcony door--without his knowing she was there, of course--and look over to the lodge through the openings in the vine, the last leaves of which fluttered like little red flags.
Oh, she might be proud of him. When he sat at the window in his leisure hours he never let himself be seen without the encyclopedia of agriculture in his hands.
He closed his shutters early every evening. In his frivolous days he had hung heavy portieres at the windows, which, with the help of the shutters, prevented the tiniest ray of light from penetrating to the outside.
Lilly doubted not in the least that his student"s lamp burned until late at night, while he sat there over his book copying valuable extracts and soaring on the pinions of great creative ideas.
She soared with him. She knew he could not lose his footing now. She had his vow, and he held her honour in his keeping. That would serve as a talisman, a guide on the road leading upward to a new life.
A few weeks pa.s.sed.
He begged to be excused from coming to Sunday dinners; for which she was grateful to him. Fortune had favoured her still further by having bestowed a cold upon her that fateful night, as a result of which the physician forbade horseback riding throughout the winter. In this Miss von Schwertfeger probably had a hand.
Once on a day early in December, the colonel, as if to spite his customary surliness, appeared at dinner in high feather. He chuckled to himself, his eyes danced and looked cunning, secret laughter, as it were, ran down his cheeks in rivulets.
Lilly ventured to ask what was amusing him.
At first he refused to speak.
"Oh, stuff and nonsense, mind your own affairs." But he could not contain himself, and finally began: "Well, guess what happened to me.
One of the men at the club said to me I"d better look sharp to my Prell, because stories were afloat that he kept knocking about in vile joints night after night and had even gotten mixed up in a nasty brawl on account of a hussy of a barmaid."
Lilly felt an icy numbness creep slowly upward from her feet. Her limbs grew rigid. She smiled, and the smile cut into her cheeks like a sharp-edged stone.
"At first, of course, I merely laughed at him, because, you know, there"s only the one train to take going and coming, and lately _I"ve_ been on that train nearly every day. No horse can stand twenty miles each way night after night, and the pocket money I give him won"t hire a special train. That"s what I said to the major; but he insisted. The younger gentlemen had told him; and it would be a pity if after all Von Prell had to be deprived of his uniform. When I got to the station at one o"clock, the business was still buzzing about in my head. I had a few moments" time, so I looked through the whole train--fourth cla.s.s and all. Of course, not a sign. I did the same thing three times in succession. Well, I thought, it"s a lie. And now listen. Yesterday, when I was just about to get into the train at this end, I remembered I had left my umbrella in the carriage. I can"t get used to that piece of furniture. So I went back. The platform was already empty, but the train was still standing there; and when I pa.s.sed the baggage car--sliding doors open--I saw someone on the opposite side jump out to the tracks and scamper off. "Stop!" I called. But he ran and ran, into the woods. I was going to tell the baggage master, who was on the platform next to the locomotive, but Prell flashed into my mind. I said to Henry: "Drive as if the devil were after you," and we reached here in five minutes.
But then, I reflected, he must have heard the carriage wheels from the path. So I went up to my room to hurry and turn on the lights. I wanted him to think I was in my room already. Did I wake you up, Lilly?" The colonel started. "How you look, Lilly!"
"I?" she said, and smiled again.
"She hasn"t been feeling very well all day," Miss von Schwertfeger interjected hastily. "Besides, your story"s very exciting, colonel. I"m all keyed up, too."
"Hm," he muttered, twisting the end of his black dyed moustache, evidently little desirous of concluding his tale. But Lilly could not calm herself.
"I must know, I must know," she cried, clasping her hands. She was beside herself.
"Well, then," said the colonel, fixing his eyes on her, "down I go again in a jiffy--in ambush in front of the lodge--there he comes, stooping like a polecat--stands still--eyes my window--sees the light--aha, he thinks, all right. And just as he"s about to stick the key in the lock, I tackle him by the collar."
Lilly burst out into a mad laugh.
"Isn"t that funny, isn"t that funny!" she cried. This time the colonel believed her.
"Something funnier"s coming," he continued. ""If you confess everything," I said, "I"ll pardon you. But only on that condition.
Otherwise you"re off to-morrow bright and early." Well, what do you think the rascal was up to? The good-for-nothing has a lady love--barmaid in the Golden Apple--where the sergeants and clerks resort. So, for the sake of b.u.mming with her, he bribed a railroad official and actually went to town and came back as a piece of the king"s baggage. Night after night rode in the same train as I did--each way. If _that_ isn"t rank impudence, what--Lilly!"
A pause ensued. Lilly experienced a sensation of swaying and reeling as if tossed on stormy seas, a buzzing and singing; at the same time she felt Miss von Schwertfeger press her hand under the table by way of warning.
The colonel rose, took Lilly"s head between his hands, and pressing it until she thought her ears would split, said:
"It seems you _do_ need rest."
With that he faced about, and left the room abruptly.
"Now gather your wits together," Lilly heard her friend"s disturbed voice behind her, "because after this he"ll be on the look-out."
Lilly wanted to throw herself on Miss von Schwertfeger"s breast and be petted and comforted. But Miss von Schwertfeger, as if afraid somebody might catch her in too intimate a conversation with Lilly, held herself aloof, and said coolly, though in a friendly tone:
"Excuse me, dear, I have something I must attend to this minute."