"Did your father drink?"
"Yes--he drank."
"And so you are afraid that you will become a drunkard, eh?"
"No, not that. A girl couldn"t very well. But I am afraid about temper."
"What temper?"
"His was so violent. When he was in one of his rages he didn"t know what he was doing; once he flew at me with a knife."
"Horrors! How old were you then?"
"Not quite eight. It was after mother"s death. He came from I don"t know where. We hadn"t seen him for two years, and when he found out that nothing had been left to him, and that it was all mine, and had already been put in the hands of trustees, he was frantic, and it was then that he did it--s.n.a.t.c.hed up the knife. Afterwards he took me with him when he travelled about. I was always to be with him, because then he could get the money for my education."
"And you understood everything even then?" he exclaimed, amazed and deeply moved.
A melancholy little smile flitted across her face, which made her look years older.
"You see, I am not so foolish as you thought," she said. "I have cried a good deal in my life. Oh yes! We were speaking of the violent temper.... Well, I have got it too. If I am angry I am blind, and don"t know what I do, and my blood rushes into my head. I shall come to a bad end one day. Mamma says I ought to pray, and beseech the Lord Jesus every day to change my bad blood. But I am not sure that it would be right. For if I have my bad times, I have my good too. No one dreams what they are. Elly, for example. You know what she is like? always placid, always soft. I believe the sun shines brighter for me than for her, that to my eyes green is greener, and ... the moon ... how it sails up there.... She doesn"t see it.... She is always too sleepy. So I say to myself often, every unhappiness may be happiness if one knows just how to enjoy things like that."
He laid his hands on his forehead and stared at her. "Great G.o.d!" he thought, "what magic there is in a young creature like this!"
She had talked herself into a high pitch of excitement, and, without heeding him, went on--
"Yes, and then he left me at Geneva and went to get married, and that is how you and I come to be related, you see. And when I heard that I had a new mother I wept for joy; but the others--the girls, you know--frightened me, and said, "What will become of you now you have got _une maratre_?" for there we all talked French. But I thought to myself, "Wait till she sees you; she will sure to be kind out of pity."
And, because Madame Guignaud wished me to pay my respects to her beforehand, I wrote her a letter. But there was not much respect in it, and it began like this: "Ma mere voici une malheureuse enfant qui vous implore"--and so on. However, it did very well, and when she came she was good and loving to me, and my heart leapt out to her. Ah! in those days she often smiled. She seemed to love my father very much, and I hoped better days were now in store for me, and I should stay at home, but, properly speaking, there was no home. He refused to stay on the estate my dead mamma had left to him, for he said that he was ashamed to be "mademoiselle"s guest." He meant me by "mademoiselle." His own estate, Malkischken, as you know, was so dilapidated that we had to get the furniture for three rooms on hire from a carpenter in Munsterberg.
That"s why we didn"t stay long there, but started travelling about. We went to Baden-Baden, Spa, Nice; and everywhere it was the same, the same waiters and electric-bells, every morning two eggs with coffee, and at dinner twelve courses; but if one was hungry in between, one had to starve, because we were charged _en pension_. Mamma was always sad, and papa always angry with me, and in want of money. Oh! it was terrible. One day he flew at me with his riding-whip, and was going to beat me, when mamma sprang between us and said, "The child shall go away to-day, or----" What the "or" meant I didn"t understand, but he grew as white as a sheet, and the next morning I went away, first back to Geneva, where I stayed till I was thirteen. That is where Ada was----"
She stopped, thinking with a start of the letter she had left unblotted on the writing-table.
"Which Ada?"
"Ada von Wehrheimb, my greatest friend," she replied; and, turning her head aside, she added with a slight blush, "She is engaged already."
"Ha! ha!" he laughed, "quickly fixed up. Well, and then?"
"Then ... then." She lost the thread of her narrative for a moment. His laugh had put her out.
"Oh, then I went to Hamburg to Frau Luttgen"s, whom we knew in Wiesbaden. Frau Luttgen"s _pensionat_ is the most noted _pensionat_ in all Hamburg. Oh, what happy times I had there!... Frau Luttgen was as tall and straight as a beanstalk, and was very particular about the p.r.o.nunciation of _s_. She "s-tarb auf der S-telle wenn man vor dem S-piegel s-tand, oder mit einer S-tecknadel s-pielte oder eine S-peise bes-pottelte." Oh, it was too lovely. And there I was confirmed, for I was to be a Protestant, although dear dead mamma was a Catholic. And I was quite willing to change, for we all reverenced the Pastor Bergmann.
And when I was kneeling at the altar, I prayed to G.o.d with all my heart to take me, so that I might go to heaven at once. For at that time I was quite pious and good, and did not know how bad people could be and how bad I was to be myself."
"And you learnt all that afterwards?" he asked, smirking.
"Rather!"
And she gave a little snort, which was always a sign that she was thinking of her faithless friends Kathi Greiffenstein and Daisy Bellepool.
"Go on, my chick," he begged; "let"s have the whole awful history."
"No, but I simply _can"t_ tell you."
"Why not?"
"Oh, dear, dear! If I do, your are sure to despise me."
"That I certainly shall not do, child."
"Well, one day you must know, so here goes.... Once, once, I was in love."
"Indeed?"
"Now you despise me, don"t you? Say "Yes," say "Yes" quite calmly. It doesn"t matter."
"Who was it?"
"I"ll tell you. We ought to have the courage of our sins, even if it costs us our head, oughtn"t we? He was a commissionaire in a music-shop."
"Great Scot!"
"Dreadful, wasn"t it? He had long fair curly hair--very long. And when we went for walks of an afternoon, Frau Luttgen in front, he used to stand at the door and make eyes at me. And I always got red, like the donkey I was."
"Now listen, child, and I"ll give you some good counsel," he said, laughing. "Not only must we have the courage of our sins, as you so wisely remarked just now, but we must do penance for them."
"You mean ... because I said.... But first hear how he behaved. I had two friends, called Kathi Greiffenstein and Daisy Bellepool, both Americans, and that is why I hate America."
"The whole country, from top to bottom?"
"Yes, and my heart felt lighter when you had cleared out of it. Well, I made those two girls the confidantes of my secrets, and one day--what do you think happened? Novels were found under Kathi Greiffenstein"s mattress: "The Broken Heart," "The Marble Bride," and "Hussar"s Love,"
and I don"t know what else. There was an awful row. Frau Luttgen held a court-martial. Kathi denied everything. She knew nothing about the books. Some one else must have put them in her bed. Another search was made, and behold in Daisy Bellepool"s bed the same discovery! But besides the books there was a packet of letters too--love-letters. To whom? Why, to me, signed Bruno Steifel.... Of course I didn"t know any one called Bruno Steifel, but who believed me when I said so? Not a soul! The letters were answers to those I was supposed to have written to him, in which I had asked him to get me novels from the lending library, ... as a knightly service and testimony of his love. Wasn"t it awful?"
"Terrible," Leo said, biting his lips.
"I was locked up, and got nothing, for two days but bread and water and slimy lentil soup. I was prayed for every morning and evening, and Laura Below bad a dream in which she saw me burning in h.e.l.l. The dream was made public at a committee meeting, and I was held up as a warning example. Who knows how long it might have gone on, if I hadn"t thought of a means of saving myself?"
"If you want to know who Herr Bruno Steifel is," I said, "why not go to the library the label of which is stamped on the outside cover of the books?... They will be certain to know him there. And they did, sure enough. And who do you think it was?"
"He of the fair locks, of course...."
"Of course. And Frau Luttgen goes at once to his chief and tells him the whole story. Herr Bruno Steifel is called and cross-examined. "Have you got novels out from the library?" "Yes," he says, and gets horribly red. "Are you in possession of letters?" He won"t answer, but the chief threatens him with dismissal, and he produces them. The signature is: "Your ever loving Hertha von Prachwitz," but the handwriting is ... now guess."
"Daisy Bellepool"s?"
"No, Kathi Greiffenstein"s. Daisy Bellepool"s mamma wished her daughter to have more freedom, like other American girls. So she was allowed to go out alone, and in consequence she arranged the whole business.
Wasn"t it disgusting?"
"Yes, disgusting."