III.


Shaking all disagreeable impressions from him, he sped through the fading light of the September afternoon.

This was the time—it was six o’clock—at which he could rejoin Louise with a free mind. It was the exception for him to go earlier, or at other hours; but, did he chance to go, no matter when, she met him in the same way—sprang towards him from the window, where she had been sitting or standing, with her eyes on the street.

“I believe you watch for me all day long,” he said to her once.

On this particular afternoon, when he had used much the same words to her, she put back her head and looked up at him, with a pale, unsmiling face.

“Not quite,” she answered slowly. “But I have a fancy, Maurice—a foolish, fancy—that once you will come early—in the morning—and we shall have the whole day together again. Perhaps even go away somewhere . . . before summer is quite over.”

“And I promise you, dearest, we will. Just let me get through the next fortnight, and then I shall be freer. We’ll take the train, and go back to Rochlitz, or anywhere you like. In the meantime, take more care of yourself. You are far too pale. You will go out tomorrow, yes?—to please me?”

But this was a request he had often made, and generally in vain.

Since the afternoon of their return, Louise had made no further attempt to stem or alter circumstance. She accepted Maurice’s absences without demur. But one result was, that her feelings were hoarded up for the few hours he passed with her: these were then a working-off of emotion; and it seemed impossible to cram enough into them, to make good the starved remainder of the day.

Maurice was vaguely troubled. He was himself so busy at this time, and so full of revived energy, that he could not imagine her happy, living as she did, entirely without occupation. At first he had tried to persuade her to take up her music again; but she would not even consider it. To all his arguments, she made the same reply.

“I have no real talent. With me, it was only an excuse—to get away from home.”

Nor could he induce her to renew her acquaintance with people she had known.

“Do you know, I once thought you didn’t care a jot what people said of you?” It was not a very kind thing to say; it slipped out unawares.

But she did not take it amiss. “I used not to,” she answered with her invincible frankness. “But now—it seems—I do.”

“Why, dearest? Aren’t you happy enough not to care?”

For answer, she took his face between her hands, and looked at him with such an ill-suppressed fire in her eyes that all he could do was to draw her into his arms.

His pains for her good came to nothing. He took her his favourite books, but—with the exception of an occasional novel—Louise was no reader. In those he brought her, she seldom advanced further than the first few pages; and she could sit for an hour without turning a leaf. He had never seen her with a piece of sewing or any such feminine employment in her hands. Nor did she spend time on her person; as a rule, he found her in her dressing-gown. He had to give up trying to influence her, and to become reconciled to the fact that she chose to live only for him. But on this September day, after the unpleasant episode with Schwarz, he had a fancy to go for a walk; Louise was unwilling; and he felt anew how preposterous it was for her to spend these fine autumn days, in this half-dark room.

“You are burying yourself alive—just as you did last winter.”

She laid her hand on his lips. “No, no!—don’t say that. Now I am happy.”

“But are you really? Sometimes I’m not sure.” He was tired himself this evening, and found it difficult to be convinced. “It troubles me when I think how dull it must be for you. Dearest, are you—can you really be happy like this?”

“I have you, Maurice.”

“But only for an hour or two in the twenty-four. Tell me, what do you think of?”

“Of you.”

“All that time? Of poor, plain, ordinary me?”

“You are mine,” she said with vehemence, and looked at him with what he called her “hungry-beast” eyes.

“You would like to eat me, I think.”

“Yes. And I should begin here; this is the bit of you I love best”—and before he knew what she was going to do, she had stooped, and he felt her teeth in the skin of his neck.

“That’s a strange way of showing your love,” he said, and involuntarily put his hand to the spot, where two bluish-red marks had appeared.

“It’s my way. I want you—I WANT you. I want to feel that you’re mine—to make you more mine than you’ve ever been. I wish I had a hundred arms. I would hold you with them all, and never let you go.”

“But, dearest, one would think I wanted to go. Do you really believe if I had my own way, I should be anywhere but here with you?”

“No.—I don’t know.—How should I know?”

“Doubts?—beloved!”

“No, no, not doubts. It’s only—oh, I don’t know what it is. If you could always be with me, Maurice, they wouldn’t come. For what I never meant to happen HAS happened. I have grown to care too much—far too much. I want you, I need you, at every moment of the day. I want you never to be out of my sight.”

Maurice held her at arm’s length, and looked at her. “You can say that—at last!” And drawing her to him: “Patience, darling. Just a little patience. Some day you will never be alone again.”

“I do have patience, Maurice. But let me be patient in my own way. For I’m not like you. I have no room in me now for other things. I can’t think of anything else. If I had my way, we should shut ourselves up alone, and live only for each other. Not share it, not make it just a part of what we do.”

“But man can’t live on nectar and honey alone. It wouldn’t be life.”

“It wouldn’t be life, no. It would be more than life.”

Some of the evening shadows seemed to invade her face. Her expression was childishly pathetic. He drew her to his knee.

“I should like to see you happier, Louise—yes, yes, I know!—but I mean perfectly happy, as you were sometimes at Rochlitz. Since we came back, it has never been just the right thing—say what you like.”

“If only we had never come back!”

“If you still think so, darling, when I’ve finished here, we’ll go away at once. In the meantime, patience.”

“Oh, I don’t mean to be unreasonable!” But her head was on his shoulder, his arms were round her; and in this position, nothing mattered greatly to her.

Patience?—yes, there was need for him to exhort her to patience. It ate already into her soul as iron bands eat into flesh. The greater part of her life was now spent in practising it. And for sheer loathing of it, she turned over, on waking, and kept her eyes closed, in an attempt to prolong the night. For the day stretched empty before her; the hours passed, one by one, like grey-veiled ghosts. Yet not for a moment had she harboured his idea of regular occupation; she knew herself too well for that. In the fever into which her blood had worked itself she could settle to nothing: her attention was centred wholly in herself; and all her senses were preternaturally acute. But she suffered, too, under the stress of her feeling; it blunted her, and made her, on the one hand, regardless of everything outside it, on the other, morbidly sensitive to trifles. She waited for him, hour after hour, crouched in a corner of the sofa, or stretched at full length, with closed eyes.

Long before it was time for him to come, she was stationed at the window. She learned to know the people who appeared in the street between the hours of four and six so accurately that she could have described them blindfold. There was the oldfaced little girl who delivered milk; there was the postman who emptied into his canvas receptacle, the blue letter-box affixed to the opposite wall; the student with the gashed face and red cap, who lived a couple of doors further down, and always whistled the same tune; the big Newfoundland dog that stalked majestically at his side, and answered to the name of Tasso—she knew them all. These two last hours were weighted with lead. He came, sometimes a poor half-hour too soon, but usually not till past six o’clock. Never, in her life, had she waited for anyone like this, and, towards the end of the time, a sense of injury, of more than mortal endurance, would steal through her and dull her heart towards him, in a way that frightened her.

When, at length, she saw him turn the corner, when she had caught and answered his swift upward glance, she drew back into the shadow of the room, and hid her face in her hands.

Then she listened.

He had the key of the little papered door in the wall. Between the sound of his step on the stair, and the turning of the key in the lock, there was time for her to undergo a moment of suspense that drove her hand to her throat. What if, after the tension of the afternoon, her heart, her nerves—parts of her over which she had no control—should not take their customary bound towards him? What if her pulses should not answer his? But before she could think her thought to the end, he was there; and when she saw his kind eyes alight, his eager hands outstretched, her nervous fears were vanquished. Maurice hardly gave himself time to shut the door, before catching her to him in a long embrace. And yet, though she did not suspect it, he, too, had a twinge of uncertainty on entering. Her bodily presence still affected him with a sense of strangeness—it took him a moment to get used to her again, as it were—and he was forced to reassure himself that nothing had changed during his absence, that she was still all his own.

When the agitation of these first, few, speechless minutes had subsided, a great tenderness seized Louise; freeing one hand, she smoothed back his hair from his forehead, with movements each of which was a caress. As for him, his first impetuous rush of feeling was invariably followed by an almost morbid pity for her, which, in this form, was a new note in their relation to each other, or a harking back to the oldest note of all. When he considered how dependent she was on him, how her one desire was to have him with her, he felt that he could never repay her or do enough for her: and, whatever his own state of mind previous to coming, when once he was there, he exerted himself to the utmost, to cheer her. It was always she who needed consolation; and, by means of his endearments, she was petted back to happiness like a tired child.

In his efforts to take her out of herself, Maurice told her how he had spent the day: where he had been, and whom he had met—every detail that he thought might interest her. She listened, in grateful silence, but she never put a question. This at an end, he returned once more, in a kind of eternal circle, to the one subject of which she never wearied. He might repeat, for the thousandth time, how dear she was to him, without the least fear that the story would grow stale in the telling.

And once here, amidst the deep tenderness of his words, he felt her slowly come to life again, and unfold like a flower. After the long, dead day, Louise was consumed by a desire to drain such moments as these to the dregs. She did not let a word of his pass unchallenged, and all that she herself said, was an attempt to discover some spasm of mental ecstasy, which they had not yet experienced. Sometimes, the feeling grew so strong that it forced her to give an outward sign. Slipping to her knees, she gazed at him with the eyes of a faithful animal. “What have I done to make you look at me like that?” asked Maurice, amazed.

“What can I do to show you how I love you? Tell me what I can do.”

“Do?—what do you want to do? Be your own dear self—that’s all, and more than enough.”

But she continued to look beseechingly at him, waiting for the word that might be the word of her salvation.

“Haven’t you done enough already, in giving yourself to me?” he asked, seeing how she hung on his lips.

But she repeated: “What can I do? Let me do something. Oh, I wish you would hurt me, or be unkind to me!”

He tried to make her understand that he wished for no such humble adoration, that, indeed, he could not be happy under it. If either was to serve the other, it was he; he asked nothing better than to put his hands under her feet. But he could neither coax her nor laugh her out of her absorption: she had the will to self-abasement; and she remained unsatisfied, waiting for the word he would not speak.

Once or twice, during these weeks, they went out in the evening, and, in the corner of some quiet restaurant, took a festive little meal. But, for the most part, she preferred to stay at home. She was not dressed, she said, or she was tired, or it was too hot, or it had rained. And Maurice did not urge her; for, on the last occasion, the evening had been spoiled for him by the conduct of some people at a neighbouring table; they had stared at Louise, and whispered remarks about her. At home, she herself prepared the supper, moving indolently about the room, her dressing-gown dragging after her, from table to cupboard, and back again, often with a pause at his side, in which she forgot what she had set out for. Maurice disputed each trifling service with her; he could only think of Louise as made to be waited on, slow to serve herself.

“Let me do it, dearest.”

She had risen anew to fetch something. Now she stood beside him, and put her arms round his neck.

“What can I do for you? Tell me what I can do,” she said, and crushed his head against her breast.

He loosened her fingers, and drew her to his knee. “What do you want me to say, dear discontent? Do?—you were never meant to do anything in this world. Your hands were made to lie one on top of the other...so! Look at them! Most white and most useless!”

“There are things not made with hands,” she answered obscurely. She let him do what he liked; but she kept her face turned away; and over her eyes passed a faint shadow of resignation.

But this mood also was a transient one; hours followed, when she no longer sought and questioned, but when she gave, recklessly, in a wild endeavour to lose the sense of twofold being. And before these outbreaks, the young man was helpless. His past life, and such experience as he had gathered in it, grew fantastic and unreal, might all have belonged to some one else: the sole reality in a world of shadows was this soft human body that he held in his arms.

Point by point, however, each of which wounded, consciousness fought itself free again. Such violent extremes of emotion were, in truth, contrary to his nature. They made him unsure. And, as the pendulum swung back, something vital in him made protest.

“Sometimes, it seems as if there were something else . . . something that’s not love at all . . . more like hate—yes, as if you hated me . . . would like to kill me.”

Her whole body was moved by the sigh she drew.

“If I only could! Then I should know that you were mine indeed.”

“Is it possible for me to be more yours than I am?”

“Part of you would never be mine, though we spent all our lives together.”

He roused himself from his lethargy. “How can you say that?—And yet I think I know what you mean. It’s like a kind of rage that comes over one—Yes, I’ve felt it, too. Listen, darling!—there are things one can’t say in daylight. I, too, have felt . . . sometimes . . . that in spite of all my love for you—I mean our love for each other—yet there was still something, a part of you, I had no power over. The real you is something—some one I don’t really know in spite of all the kisses. Yes”—and the more he tried to find words for what he meant, the more convinced he grew of its truth. “Nothing keeps us apart; you love me, are here in my arms, and yet . . .yet there’s a bit of you I can’t influence—that is still strange to me. How often I have to ask you why you look at me in a certain way, or what you are thinking of! I never know your thoughts; I’ve never once been able to read them; you always keep something back.—Why is it, dear? Is it my fault? If I could just once get at your real self—if I knew that once, only once, in all these weeks, you had been mine—every bit of you—then . . . yes, then, I believe I would be satisfied to . . . to—I don’t know what!”

He had spoken in an even, monotonous voice, almost more to himself than to her. Now, however, he was forced to the opposite extreme of anxious solicitude. “No, no, I didn’t really mean it. Darling! . . . hush!—don’t cry like that. I didn’t know what I was saying; it isn ‘t true, not a word of it.”

She had flung herself across him; her own elemental weeping shook her from head to foot. He realised, for the first time, the depth and strength of it, now that it, as it were, went through him, too. Gathering her to him, he made wild and foolish promises. But nothing soothed her: she wept on, until the dawn crept in, thinly grey, round the windows. But when it grew so light that the objects in the room were recovering their form, she fell asleep, and he hardly dared to breathe, for fear of disturbing her.

By day, the sensations he had tried to express to her seemed the figments of the night. He needed only to be absent from her to feel the old restlessness tug at his heart-strings. At such moments, it seemed to him ridiculous to torment himself about an infinitesimal flaw in their love, and one which perhaps existed only in his imagination. To be with her again was his sole desire; and to feel her cheek on his, to be free to run his hands through her exciting hair, belonged, when he was separated from her, to that small category of things for which he would have bartered his soul.

One evening, towards the end of September, Louise watched for him at the window. It had been a warm autumn day, rich in varying lights and shades. Now it was late, nearly half-past six, and still he had not come: her eyes were tired with staring down the street.

When at last he appeared, she saw that that he was carrying flowers. Her heart, which, at the sight of him, had set up a glad and violent beating, settled down again at once, to its normal course. She knew what the flowers meant: in a spirit of candour, which had something disarming in it, he invariably brought them when he could not stay long with her; and she had learned to dread seeing them in his hand.

In very truth, he was barely inside the room before he told her that he could only stay for an hour. He was to play his trio the following evening, and now, at the last moment, the ‘cellist had been taken ill. He had spent the greater part of the afternoon looking for a substitute, and having found one, had still to interview him again, to let him know the time at which Schwarz had appointed an extra rehearsal for the next day.

Maurice had mentioned more than once the date of his playing; but it had never seemed more to Louise than a disturbing outside fact, to be put out of mind or kissed away. She had forgotten all about it, and the knowledge of this overcame her disappointment; she tried to atone, by being reasonable. Maurice had steeled himself against pleadings and despondency, and was grateful to her for making things easy. He wished to outdo himself in tender encouragement; but she remained evasive: and since, in spite of himself, he could not hinder his thoughts from slipping forward to the coming evening, he, too, had moments of preoccupied silence.

When the clock struck eight, he rose to go. In saying goodnight, he turned her face up, and asked her had she decided if she were coming to hear him play.

It was on her direct lips to reply that she had not thought anything about it. A glance at his face checked her. He was waiting anxiously for her answer: it was a matter of importance to him. Her previous sense of remissness was still with her, hampering her, making her unfree; and for a minute she did not know what to say.

“Would you mind much if I asked you not to come?” he said as she hesitated.

“No, of course not,” she hastened to respond, glad to be relieved of the decision. “If you would rather I didn’t.”

“It’s a fancy of mine, dearest—foolish, I know—that I shall get on better if you’re not there.”

“It’s all right. I understand.”

When he had gone, she returned to her place at the window. It was a fine night: there was no moon; but the stars glittered furiously in the inky-blue sky, a stretch of which was visible above the gardens. The vastness of the night, the distance of sky and stars, made her shiver. Leaning her wrists on the cold, moist sill, she looked down into the street; it was not very far; but a jump from where she was, to the pavement, would suffice to put an end to every feeling. She was very lonely; no one wanted her. Here she might stand, at this forlorn post, for hours, for the whole night; no one would either know or care.—And her feeling of error, of unfreedom and desolation grew so hard to bear that, for fear she should actually throw herself down, she banged the window to, with a crash that resounded through the street.

But there was something else at work in her to-night, which she could not understand. She struggled with it, as one struggles with a forgotten melody, which hovers behind the consciousness, and will not emerge.

Except for the light thrown by a small lamp, the room was in shadow. She went slowly back to the sofa. On the way she trod on the roses; they had been knocked down and forgotten. She picked them up, and laid them on the cushioned seat beside her. They were dark crimson, and gave out a strong scent: Maurice had seldom brought her such beautiful roses. She sat with her elbows on her knees, her hands closed and pressed to her cheeks, as though she could only think with her muscles at a strain. In memory, she went over what he had said, reflected on what his words meant, and strove, honestly, to project herself into that part of his life, of which she knew nothing. But it was not easy; for one thing, the smell of the roses was too strong; it seemed to hinder her imagination. They had the scent that only deep red roses have—one which seems to come from a distance, from the very heart of cool, pure things—and more and more, she felt as if something within her were trying to find vent in it, something that swelled up, subsided, and mounted again, with what was almost a physical effort. It had been the truth when she told him that she understood; but it had touched her strangely all the same: for it had let her see into an unsuspected corner of his nature. He, too, then, had a cranny in his brain, where such fancies lodged—such an eccentric, artist fancy, or whim, or superstition—as that, out of several hundred people, a single individual could distract and disturb. He . . . too!

The little word had done it. Now she knew—knew what the roses had been trying to tell her. And as if invisible hands had touched a spring in her brain, thereby opening some secret place, the memory of a certain hour returned to her, returned with such force that she fell on her knees, and pressed her face to the seat of the sofa. On the floor beside her lay the roses. Why, oh why, had he needed to bring them to her, on this night of all others?

On the day she remembered, they had been lavished over the room-one June evening, two years ago. And ever afterwards, the scent of blood-red roses had been associated for her with one of the sweet, leading themes in Beethoven’s violin concerto. There was a special concert that night at the Conservatorium; the hall was filled to the last place. She waited with him in the green-room, until his turn came to play. Then she went into the hall, and stood at the back, under the gallery. Once more, she was aware of the stir that ran through the audience, as Schilsky walked down the platform. Hardly, however, had he drawn his bow across the strings, when she felt a touch on her arm, and a Russian, who was an intimate friend of his, beckoned her outside. There, he told her that he had been sent to ask her to leave the hall; and they smiled at each other, in understanding of the whim. Afterwards, she learned how, just about to step on to the platform, Schilsky had had a presentiment that things would go wrong if she remained inside. In his gratitude, and in the boyish exultation with which success filled him, he had collected all the roses, and wantonly pulled them to pieces. Red petals fell like flakes of red snow; and, crushed and bruised, the fragile leaves had yielded a scent, tenfold increased.

While it lasted, the vision was painfully intense: on returning to herself, she was obliged to look round and think where she was. The lamp burned steadily; the dull room was just as she had left it. With a cry, she buried her face in the cushions again, and held her hands to her ears.

More, more, and more again! She was as hungry for these memories as a child for dainties. She was starved for them. And now, dead to the present, she relived the past happy hours of triumph and excitement, not one of which had hung heavy, in each of which her craving for sensation had been stilled. She saw herself as she had then been, proud, secure, unspeakably content. Forgotten words rang in her ears, words of love and of anger, words that were like ointment and like knives. Then, not a day had been empty or tedious; life was always highly coloured, and there was neither pleasure nor pain that she had not tasted to the full. Even the suffering she had gone through, for his sake, was no longer hateful to her. Anything—anything rather than this dead level of monotony on which she had fallen.

When, finally, she raised her head, she might, for all she knew, have been absent for days. Things had lost their familiar aspect; she had once more lived right through the great experience of her life. Putting her hands to her forehead, she tried to force her thoughts back to reality. Then, stiffly, she rose from her knees. In doing so, she touched the roses. With a gesture that was her real awakening, she caught them up and pressed them to her face. It was a satisfaction to her that fingers and cheeks were pricked by their thorns. She was conscious of wishing to hurt herself. With her lips on the cool buds, she stammered broken words: “Maurice—my poor Maurice!” and kissed the flowers, feeling as if, in some occult way, he would be aware of her kisses, of the love she was thus expending on him.

For, in a sudden revulsion of feeling, she was sensible of a great compassion for him; and with each pressure of her lips to the roses, she implored his forgiveness for her unpremeditated desertion. She called to mind his tenderness, his unceasing care of her, and, closing her eyes, stretched out her arms to him, in the empty room. Already she began to live for the following evening, when he would come again. Now, only to sleep through as many as she could of the hours that separated them! She would be to him the next night, what she had never yet been: his own rival in fondness. And as a beginning, she crossed the room, and put the fading roses in a pitcher of water.

IV.


Towards seven o’clock the following evening, Maurice loitered about the vestibule of the Conservatorium. In spite of his attempt to time himself, he had arrived too early, and his predecessor on the programme had still to play two movements of a sonata by Beethoven.

As he stood there, Madeleine entered by the street-door.

“Is that you?” she asked, in the ironical tone she now habitually used to him. “You look just as if you were posing for the John in a Rubens Crucifixion.—Feel shaky? No? You ought to, you know. One plays all the better for it.—Well, good luck to you! I’ll hold my thumbs.”

He went along the passage to the little green-room, at the heels of his string-players. On seeing them go by, it had occurred to him that he might draw their attention to a passage in the VARIATIONS, with which he had not been satisfied at rehearsal that day. But when he caught them up, they were so deep in talk that he hesitated to interrupt. The ‘cellist, a greasy, little fellow with a mop of touzled hair, was relating an adventure he had had the night before. His droll way of telling it was more amusing than the long-winded story, and he himself was more tickled by it than was the violinist, a lanky German-American boy, with oily black hair and a pimpled face. Throughout, both tuned their instruments assiduously, with that air of inattention common to string-players.

Meanwhile, the sonata by Beethoven ran its course. While the story-teller still smacked his lips, it came to an end, and the performer, a tall, Polish girl, with a long, sallow, bird-like neck, round which was wound a piece of black velvet, descended the steps. Behind her was heard the applause of many hands. As this showed no sign of ceasing, Schwarz, who had come out of the hall by a lower door, bade her return and bow her thanks. At his words, the girl burst into tears.

“NA, NA, NA!” he said soothingly. “What’s all this about? You did excellently.”

She seized his hand and clung to it. The ‘cellist ran to fetch water; the other two young men were embarrassed, and looked away.

Here, however, several friends burst into the room, and bore Fraulein Prybowski off. Schwarz gave the signal, the stringplayers picked up their instruments, and the little procession, with Maurice at its head, mounted the steps to the platform.

Although before an audience for the first time in his life, Maurice had never felt more composed. Passing by the organ, and the empty seats of the orchestra, he descended to the front of the platform, where two grand pianos stood side by side; and, as he went, he noted that the hall was exceptionally well filled. He let down the lid of the piano to the peg for chambermusic; he lowered the piano-chair, and flicked the keys with his handkerchief. And Schwarz, sitting by him, to turn the pages of the music, felt so sure of this pupil’s coolness that he yawned, and stroked the insides of his trouser-legs.

Maurice was just ready for the start, when the ‘cellist, who was restless, discovered that the stand which had been placed for him was insecure; rising from his scat, he went to fetch another from the back of the platform. In the delay that ensued, Maurice looked round at the audience. He saw innumerable heads and faces, all turned expectantly towards him, like lines of globular fruits. His eye ranged indifferently over the occupants of the front seats—strange faces, which told him nothing—until his attention was arrested by a face almost directly beneath him, in the second row. For the flash of a second, he thought he knew the person to whom it belonged, and struggled to recall a name. Then, almost as swiftly, he dismissed the idea. It was, however, a face of that kind which, once seen, is never forgotten—a frog-like face, with protruding eyes, and the frog’s expressive leer. Somewhere, not very long ago, this face had been before him, and had stared at him in the same disconcerting manner—but where? when? In the few seconds that remained, his brain worked furiously, sped back in desperate haste over all the likely places where he might have seen it. And a restaurant evolved itself; a table in a secluded corner; chrysanthemums and their acrid scent; a screen, round which this repulsive face had peered. It had fixed them both, with such malevolence that it had destroyed his pleasure, and he had persuaded Louise to go home. His memory was now so alert that he could recall the man’s two companions as well.

The scene built itself up with inconceivable rapidity. And while he was still absorbed by it, Schwarz raised a decisive hand. It was the signal to begin; he obeyed unthinkingly; and was at the bottom of the first page before he knew it.

Throughout the whole of the opening movement, he was not rightly awake to what he was doing. His fingers, like well-drilled soldiers, went automatically through their work, neither blundering nor forgetting; but the mind which should have controlled them was unable to concentrate itself: he heard himself play as though he were listening to some one else. He was only roused by the burst of applause that succeeded the final chords. As he struck the first notes of the ANDANTE WITH VARIATIONS, he nerved himself for an effort; but now, as if it were the result of his previous inattention, an odd uneasiness beset him; and his beginning to weigh each note as he played it, his fingers hesitated and grew less sure. Having failed, through over-care, in the rounding of a turn, he resolved to let things go as they would, and his thoughts wander at will. The movements of the trio succeeded one another; the VARIATIONS ceased, and were followed by the crisp gaiety of the MINUET. The lights above his head were reflected in the shining ebony of the piano; regularly, every moment or two, he was struck by the appearance of Schwarz’s broad, fat hand, which crossed his range of vision to turn a leaf; he meditated absently on a sharp uplifting of this hand that occurred, as though the master were dissatisfied with the rhythm—the ‘cellist’s fault, no doubt: he had been inexact at rehearsal, and, this evening, was too much taken up with his own witticisms beforehand, to think about what he had to do. And thus the four divisions of the trio slipped past, separated by a disturbing noise of hands, which continued to seem as unreal to Maurice as everything else. Only as the last notes of the PRESTISSIMO died away, in the disappointing, ineffectual scales in C major, with which the trio closed—not till then did he grasp that the event to which he had looked forward for many weeks was behind him, and also that no one present knew less of how it had passed off than he himself.

With his music in his hand, he turned to Schwarz, to learn what success he had had, from the master’s face. According to custom, Schwarz shook hands with him; he also nodded. but he did not smile. He was, however, in a hurry; the old: white-haired director had left his seat, and stood waiting to speak to him. Both ‘cellist and violinist had vanished on the instant; the audience, eager as ever at the end of a concert to shake off an imposed restraint, had risen while Maurice still played the final notes; and, by this time, the hall was all but empty.

He slowly ascended the platform. Now that it was over, he felt how tired he was; his very legs were tired, as though he had walked for miles. The green-room was deserted; the gas-jet had been screwed down to a peep. None of his friends had come to say a word to him. He had really hardly expected it; but, all the same, a hope had lurked in him that Krafft would perhaps afterwards make some sign—even Madeleine. As, however, neither of them appeared, he seemed to read a confirmation of his failure in their absence, and he loitered for some time in the semi-darkness, unwilling to face the dispersing crowd. When at length he went down the passage, only a few stragglers remained. One or two acquaintances congratulated him in due form, but he knew neither well enough to try to get at the truth. As he was nearing the street-door, however, Dove came out of the BUREAU. He made for Maurice at once; his manner was eager, his face bore the imprint of interesting news.

“I say, Guest!” he cried, while still some way off. “An odd coincidence. Young Leumann is to play this very same trio next week. A little chap in knickerbockers, you know—pupils of Rendel’s. He is said to have a glorious LEGATO—just the very thing for the VARIATIONS.”

“Indeed?” said Maurice with a well-emphasised dryness. His tone nudged Dove’s memory.

“By the way, all congratulations, of course,” he hastened to add. “Never heard you play better. Especially the MENUETTO. Some people sitting behind me were reminded of Rubinstein.”

“Well, good-night, I’m off,” said Maurice, and, even as he spoke, he shot away, leaving his companion in some surprise.

Once out of Dove’s sight, he took off his hat and passed his hand over his forehead. Any slender hope he might have had was now crushed; his playing had been so little remarkable that even Dove had been on the point of overlooking it altogether.

Louise threw herself into his arms. At last! she exulted to herself. But his greeting had not its usual fervour; instead of kissing her, he laid his face against her hair. Instantly, she became uncertain. She did not quite know what she had been expecting; perhaps it had been something of the old, pleasurable excitement that she had learnt to associate with an occasion like the present. She put back her head and looked at him, and her look was a question.

“Yes. At least it’s over, thank goodness!” he said in reply.

Not knowing what answer to make to this, she led him to the sofa. They sat down, and, for a few minutes, neither spoke. Then, he did what on the way there, he had imagined himself doing: laid his head on her lap, and himself placed her hands on his hair. She passed them backwards and forwards; her sense of having been repulsed, yielded, and she tried to change the current of his thoughts.

“Did you notice, Maurice, as you came along, how full the air was of different scents to-night?” she asked as her cool hands went to and fro. “It was like an evening in July. I was at the window trying to make them out. But the roses were too strong for them; for you see—or rather you have not seen—all the roses I have got for you—yes, just dark red roses. This afternoon I went to the little shop at the corner, and bought all they had. The pretty girl served me—do you remember the pretty girl with the yellow hair, who tried to make friends with you last summer? You like roses, too, don’t you? Though not as much as I do. They were always my favourite flowers. As a child, I used to imagine what it would be like to gather them for a whole day, without stopping. But, like all my wishes then, this had to be postponed, too, till that wonderful future, which was to bring me all I wanted. There were only a few bushes where I lived; it was too dry for them. But the smell of them takes me back—always. I have only to shut my eyes, and I am full of the old extravagant longings—the childish impatience with time, which seemed to crawl so slowly . . . even to stand still.”

“Tell me all about it,” he murmured, without raising his head.

She smiled and humoured him.

“I like flowers best for their scents,” she went on. “No matter what beautiful colours they have. A camelia is a foolish flower; like a blind man’s face—the chief thing is wanting. But then, of course, the smell must remind one of pleasant things. It’s strange, isn’t it, how much association has to do with pleasure?—or pain. Some things affect me so strongly that they make me wretched. There’s music I can’t listen to; I have to put my hands to my ears, and run away from it; and all because it takes me back to an unhappy hour, or to a time of my life that I hated. There are streets I never walk through, even words I dread to hear anyone say, because they are connected with some one I disliked, or a day I would rather not have lived. And it is just the same with smells. Wood smouldering outside!—and all the country round is smoky with bush fires. Mimosa in the room—and I can feel the sun beating down on deserted shafts and the stillness of the bush. Rotting leaves and the smell of moist earth, and I am a little girl again, in short dresses, standing by a grave—my father’s to which I was driven in a high buggy, between two men in black coats. I can’t remember crying at all, or even feeling sorry; I only smelt the earth—it was in the rainy season and there was water in the grave.—But flowers give me my pleasantest memories. Passion-flowers and periwinkles—you will say they have no smell, but it’s not true. Flat, open passionflowers—red or white—with purplish-fringed centres, have a honey-smell, and make me think of long, hot, cloudless days, which seemed to have neither beginning nor end. And little periwinkles have a cool green smell; for they grew along an old paling fence, which was shady and sometimes even damp. And violets? I never really cared for violets; not till . . . I mean . . . I never . . .”

She had entangled herself, and broke off so abruptly that he moved. He was afraid this soothing flow of words was going to cease.

“Yes, yes, go on, tell me some more—about violets.”

She hastened to recover herself. “They are silly little flowers. Made to wither in one’s dress . . . or to be crushed. Unless one could have them in such masses that they filled the room. But lilac, Maurice, great sprays and bunches of lilac-white and purple—you know, don’t you, who will always be associated with lilac for me? Do you remember some of those evenings at the theatre, on the balcony between the acts? The gallery was so hot, and out there it seemed as if the whole town were steeped in lilac. Or walking home—those glorious nights—when some one was so silent . . . so moody—do you remember?”

At the peculiar veiled tone that had come into her voice; at this reminder of a past day of alternate rapture and despair, so different from the secured happiness of the present; at the thought of this common memory that had built itself up for them round a flower’s scent, a rush of grateful content overcame Maurice, and, for the first time since entering the room, he looked up at her with a lover’s eyes.

Safe, with her arms round him, he was strong enough to face the worst. “How good you are to me, dearest! And I don’t deserve it. To-night, you might just have sent me away again, when I came. For I was in a disagreeable mood—and still am. But you won’t give me up just yet for all that, will you? However despondent I get about myself? For you are all I have, Louise—in the whole world. Yes, I may as well confess it to you, to-night was a failure—not a noisy, open one but all the same, it’s no use calling it anything else.”

He had laid his head on her lap again, so did not see her face. While he spoke, Louise looked at him, in a kind of unwilling surprise. Instinctively, she ceased to pass her hands over his hair.

“Oh, no, Maurice,” she then protested, but weakly, without conviction.

“Yes—failure,” he repeated, and put more emphasis than before on the word. “It’s no good beating about the bush.—And do you realise what it—what failure means for us, Louise?”

“Oh, no,” she said again, vaguely trying to ward off what she foresaw was coming. “And why talk about it to-night? You are tired. Things will seem different in the morning. Shut your eyes again, and lie quite still.”

But, the ice once broken, he felt the need of speaking—of speaking out relentlessly all that was in him. And, as he talked. he found it impossible to keep still; he paced the room. He was very pale and very voluble, and made a clean breast of everything that troubled him; not so much, however, with the idea of confessing it to her, as of easing his own mind. And now, again, he let her see into his real self, and, unlike the previous occasion, it was here more than a glimpse that she caught. He was distressingly frank with her. She heard now, for the first time, of the foolish ambitions with which he had begun his studies in Leipzig; heard of their gradual subsidence, and his humble acceptance of his inferiority, as well as of his present fear that, when his time came to an end, he would have nothing to show for it—and under the influence of what had just happened, this fear grew more vivid. It was one thing, he made clear to her, and unpleasant enough at best, to have to find yourself to rights as a mediocrity, when you had hoped with all your heart that you were something more. But what if, having staked everything on it, you should discover that you had mistaken your calling altogether?

“To-night, you see, I think I should have been a better chimney-sweep. The real something that makes the musician—even the genuinely musical outsider—is wanting in me. I’ve learnt to see that, by degrees, though I don’t know in the least what it is.—But even suppose I were mistaken—who could tell me that I was? One’s friends are only too glad to avoid giving a downright opinion, and then, too, which of them would one care to trust? I believe in the end I shall go straight to Schwarz, and get him to tell me what he thinks of me—whether I’m making a fool of myself or not.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” Louise said quickly.

It was the first time she had interrupted him. She had sat and followed his restless movements with a look of apprehension. A certain board in the floor creaked when he trod on it, and she found herself listening, each time, for the creaking of this board. She was sorry for him, but she could not attach the importance he did to his assumed want of success, nor was she able to subdue the feeling of distaste with which his doubtings inspired her. It was so necessary, too, this outpouring; she had never felt curious about the side of his nature which was not the lover’s side. Tonight, it became clear to her that she would have preferred to remain in ignorance of it. And besides, what he said was so palpable, so undeniable, that she could not understand his dragging the matter to the surface: she had never thought of him but as one of the many honest workers, who swell the majority, and are not destined to rise above the crowd. She had not dreamed of his considering himself in another light, and it was painful to her now, to find that he had done so. To put an end to such embarrassing confidences, she went over to him, and, with her hands on his shoulders, her face upturned, said all the consoling words she could think of, to make him forget. They had never yet failed in their effect. But to-night too much was at work in Maurice, for him to be influenced by them. He kissed her, and touched her cheek with his hand, then began anew; and she moved away, with a slight impatience, which she did not try to conceal.

“You brood too much, Maurice . . . and you exaggerate things, too. What if every one took himself so seriously?—and talked of failure because on a single occasion he didn’t do himself justice?”

“It’s more than that with me, dear.—But it’s a bad habit, I know—not that I really mean to take myself too seriously; but all my life I have been forced to worry about things, and to turn them over.”

“It’s unhealthy always to be looking into yourself. Let things go more, and they’ll carry you with them.”

He took her hands. “What wise-sounding words! And I’m in the wrong, I know, as usual. But, in this case, it’s impossible not to worry. What happened this evening seems a trifle to you, and no doubt would to every one else, too. But I had made a kind of touchstone of it; it was to help to decide the future—that hideously uncertain future of ours! I believe now, as far as I’m concerned, I don’t care whether I ever come to anything or not. Of course, I should rather have been a success—we all would!—but caring for you has swallowed up the ridiculous notions I once had. For your sake—it’s you I torment myself about. WHAT is to become of us?”

“If that’s all, Maurice! Something will turn up, I’m sure it will. Have a little patience, and faith in luck . . . or fate . . . or whatever you like to call it.”

“That’s a woman’s way of looking at things.”

He was conscious of speaking somewhat unkindly; but he was hurt by her lack of sympathy. Instead, however, of smoothing things over, he was impelled, by an unconquerable impulse, to disclose himself still further. “Besides, that’s not all,” he said, and avoided her eyes. “There’s something else, and I may just as well make a clean breast of it. It’s not only that the future is every bit as shadowy to-night as it has always been: I haven’t advanced it by an inch. But I feel to-night that if I could have been what I once hoped to be—no, how shall I put it? You know, dear, from the very beginning there has been something wrong, a kind of barrier between ushasn’t there? How often I’ve tried to find out what it is! Well, to-night I seem to know. If I were not such an out-and-out mediocrity, if I had really been able to achieve something, you would care for me—yes, that’s it!—as you can’t possibly care now. You would have to; you wouldn’t be able to help yourself.”

Her first impulsive denial died on her lips; as he continued to speak, she seemed to feel in his words an intention to wound her, or, at least, to accuse her of want of love. When she spoke, it was in a cool voice, as though she were on her guard against being touched too deeply.

“That has nothing whatever to do with it,” she said. “It’s you yourself, Maurice, I care for—not what you can or can’t do.”

But these words added fuel to his despondency. “Yes, that’s just it,” he answered. “For you, I’m in two parts, and one of them means nothing to you. I’ve felt it, often enough, though I’ve never spoken of it till to-night. Only one side of me really matters to you. But if I’d been able to accomplish what I once intended—to make a name for myself, or something of that sort—then it would all have been different. I could have forced you to be interested in every single thing I did—not only in the me that loves you, but in every jot of my outside life as well.”

Louise did not reply: she had a moment of genuine despondency. The staunch tenderness she had been resolved to feel for him this evening, collapsed and shrivelled up; for the morbid self-probing in which he was indulging made her see him with other eyes. What he said belonged to that category of things which are too true to be put into words: why could not he, like every one else, let them rest, and act as if they did not exist? It was as clear as day: if he were different, the whole story of their relations would be different, too. But as he could not change his nature, what was the use of talking about it, and of turning out to her gaze, traits of mind with which she could not possibly sympathise? Standing, a long white figure, beside the piano, she let her arms hang weakly at her sides. She did not try to reason with him again, or even to comfort him; she let him go on and on, always in the same strain, till her nerves suddenly rebelled at the needless irritation.

“Oh, WHY must you be like this to-night?” she broke in on him. “Why try to destroy such happiness as we have? Can you never be content?”

From the way in which he seized upon these words, it seemed as if he had only been waiting for her to say them. “Such happiness as we have!” he repeated. “There!—listen!—you yourself admit it. Admit all I’ve been saying.—And do you think I can realise that, and be happy? No, I’ve suffered under it from the first day. Oh, why, loving you as I do, could I not have been different?—more worthy of you. Why couldn’t I, too, be one of those favoured mortals . . .? Listen to me,” he said lowering his voice, and speaking rapidly. “Let me make another confession. Do you know why to-night is doubly hard to bear? It’s because—yes, because I know you must be forced—and not to-night only, but often—to compare me what I am and what I can do—with . . . with . . . you know who I mean. It’s inevitable—the comparison must be thrust on you every day of your life. But does that, do you think, make it any the easier for me?”

As the gist of what he was trying to say was borne in upon her, Louise winced. Her face lost its tired expression, and grew hard. “You are breaking your word,” she said, in a tone she had never before used to him. “You promised me once, the past should never be mentioned between us.”

“I’m not blind, Louise,” he went on, as though she had not spoken. “Nor am I in a mood to-night to make myself any illusions. The remembrance of what he was—he was never doubtful of himself, was he?—must always—HAS always stood between us, while I have racked my brains to discover what it was. To-night it came over me like a flash that it was he—that he . . . he spoiled you utterly for anyone else; made it impossible for you to care for anyone who wasn’t made of the same stuff as he was. It would never have occurred to him, would it, to torment you and make you suffer for his own failure? For the very good reason that he never was a failure. Oh, I haven’t the least doubt what a sorry figure I must cut beside him!”

The unhappy words came out slowly, and seemed to linger in the air. Louise did not break the pause that followed, and by her silence, assented to what he said. She still stood motionless beside the piano.

“Or tell me,” Maurice cried abruptly, with a ray of hope; “tell me the truth about it all, for once. Was it mere exaggeration, or was he really worth so much more than all the rest of us? Of course he could play—I know that—but so can many a fool. But all the other part of it—his incredible talent, or luck in everything he touched—was it just report, or was it really something else?—Tell me.”

“He was a genius,” she answered, very coldly and distinctly; and her voice warned him once more that he was trespassing on ground to which he had no right. But he was too excited to take the warning.

“A genius!” he echoed. “He was a genius! Yes, what did I tell you? Your very words imply a comparison as you say them. For I?—what am I? A miserable bungler, a wretched dilettant—or have you another word for it? Oh, never mind—don’t be afraid to say it!—I’m not sensitive tonight. I can bear to hear your real opinion of me; for it could not possibly be lower than my own. Let us get at the truth for once, by all means!—But what I want to know,” he cried a moment later, “is, why one should be given so much and the other so little. To one all the talents and all your love; and the other unhappy wretch remains an outsider his whole life long. When you speak in that tone about him, I could wish with all my heart that he had been no better than I am. It would give me pleasure to know that he, too, had only been a dabbling amateur—the victim of a pitiable wish to be what he hadn’t the talent for.”

He could not face her amazement; he stared at the yellow globe of the lamp till his eyes smarted.

“It no doubt seems despicable to you,” he went on, “but I can’t help it. I hate him for the way he was able to absorb you. He’s my worst enemy, for he has made it impossible for you—the woman I love—to love me wholly in return.—Of course, you can’t—you WON’T understand. You’re only aghast at what you think my littleness. Of all I’ve gone through, you know nothing, and don’t want to know. But with him, it was different; you had no difficulty in understanding him. He had the power over you. Look!—at this very moment, you are siding, not with me, but with him. All my struggling and striving counts for nothing.—Oh, if I could only understand you!” He moved to and fro in his agitation. “Why is a woman so impossible? Does nothing matter to her but tangible success? Do care and consideration carry no weight? Even matched against the blackguardly egoism of what you call genius?—Or will you tell me that he considered you? Didn’t he treat you from beginning to end like the scoundrel he was?”

She raised hostile eyes. “You have no right to say that,” she said in a small, icy voice, which seemed to put him at an infinite distance from her. “You are not able to judge him. You didn’t know him as . . . as I did.”

With the last words a deeper note came into her voice, and this was all Maurice heard. A frenzied fear seized him.

“Louise!” he cried violently. “You care for him still!”

She started, and raised her arms, as if to ward off a blow. “I don’t . . . I don’t . . . God knows I don’t! I hate him—you know I do!” She had clapped both hands to her face, and held them there. When she looked up again, she was able to speak as quietly as before. “But do you want to make me hate you, too? Do you think it gives me a higher opinion of you, to hear you talk like that about some one I once cared for? How can I find it anything but ungenerous?—Yes, you are right, he WAS different—in every way. He didn’t know what it meant to be envious of anyone. He was as different from you as day from night.”

Maurice was hurt to the quick. “Now I know your real opinion of me! Till now you have been considerate enough to hide it. But to-night I have heard it from your own lips. You despise me!”

“Well, you drove me to say it,” she burst out, wounded in her turn. “I should never have said it of my own accord—never! Oh, how ungenerous you are! It’s not the first time you’ve goaded me into saying something, and then turned round on me for it. You seem to enjoy finding out things you can feel hurt by.—But have I ever complained? Did I not take you just as you were, and love you—yes, love you! I knew you couldn’t be different—that it wasn’t your fault if you were faint-hearted and . . . and—But you?—what do you do? You talk as if you worship the ground I walk on: but you can’t let me alone. You are always trying to change me—to make me what you think I ought to be.”

Her words came in haste, stumbling one over the other, as it became plain to her how deeply this grievance, expressed now for the first time, had eaten into her soul. “You’ve never said to yourself, she’s what she is because it’s her nature to be. You want to remake my nature and correct it. You are always believing something is wrong. You knew very well, long ago, that the best part of me had belonged to some one else. You swore it didn’t matter. But to-night, because there’s absolutely nothing else you can cavil at, you drag it up again—in spite of your promises. I have always been frank with you. Do you thank me for it? No, it’s been my old fault of giving everything, when it would have been wiser to keep something back, or at least to pretend to. I might have taken a lesson from you, in parsimonious reserve. For there’s a part of you, you couldn’t give away—not if you lived with a person for a hundred years.”

Of all she said, the last words stung him most.

“Yes, and why?” he cried. “Ask yourself why I You are unjust, as only a woman can be. You say there’s a part of me you don’t know. If that’s true, what does it mean? It means you don’t want to know it. You don’t want it even to exist. You want everything to belong to you. You don’t care for me well enough to be interested in that side of my life which has nothing to do with you. Your love isn’t strong enough for that.”

“Love!—need we talk about love?” Her face was so unhappy that it seerned to have grown years older. “Love is something quite different. It takes everything just as it is. You have never reaily loved me.”.

“I have never really loved you?”

He repeated the words after her, as if he did not understand them, and with his right hand grasped the table; the ground seemed to be slipping from under his feet. But Louise did not offer to retract what she had said, and Maurice had a moment of bewilderment: there, not three yards from him, sat the woman who was the centre of his life; Louise sat there, and with all appearance of believing it, could cast doubts on his love for her. At the thought of it, he was exasperated.

“I not love you!”

His voice was rough, had escaped control. “You have only to lift your finger, and I’ll throw myself from that window on to the pavement.”

Louise sat as if turned to stone.

“Don’t you hear?” he cried more loudly. “Look up! . . . tell me to do it!”

Still she did not move.

“Louise, Louise!” he implored, throwing himself down before her. “Speak to me! Don’t you hear me?—Louise!”

“Oh, yes, I hear,” she said at last. “I hear how ready you are with promises you know you will not be asked to keep. But the small, everyday things—those are what you won’t do for me.”

“Tell me . . . tell me what I shall do!”

“All I ask of you is to be happy. And to let me be happy, too.”

He stammered promises and entreaties. Never, never again!—if only this once she would forgive him; if only she would smile at him, and let the light come back to her eyes. He had not been responsible for his actions this evening.

“It was more of a strain than I knew. And after it was over, I had to vent my disappointment somehow; and it was you, poor darling, who suffered. Forgive me, Louise!—But try, dear, a little to understand why it was. Can’t you see that I was only like that through fear—yes, fear!—that somehow you might slip from me. I can’t help feeling, one day you will have had enough of me, and will see me for what I really am.”

He tried to put his arms round her, but she held back: she had no desire to be reconciled. The sole response she made to his beseeching words was: “I want to be happy.”

“But you shall.—Do you think I live for anything else? Only forgive me! Remember the happiest hours we have spent together. Come back to me; be mine again! Tell me I am forgiven.”

He was in despair; he could not get at her, under her coating of insensibility. And since his words had no power to move her, he took to kissing her hands. She left them limply in his; she did not resist him. From this, he drew courage: he began to treat her more inconsiderately, compelling her to bend down to him, making her feel his strength; and he did not cease his efforts till her head had sunk forward, heavy and submissive, on his shoulder.

They were at peace again: and the joys of reconciliation seemed almost worth the price they had paid for them.

V.


The following morning, having drunk his coffee, Maurice pushed back the metal tray on which the delf-ware stood, and remained sitting idle with his hands before him. It was nine o’clock, and the houses across the road were beginning to catch stray sunbeams. By this time, his daily work was as a rule in full swing; but to-day he was in no hurry to commence. He was even more certain now than he had been on the night before, of his lack of success; and the idea of starting anew on the dull round filled him with distaste. He had been so confident that his playing would, in some way or other, mark a turning-point in his musical career; and lo! it had gone off with as little fizz and effect as a damp rocket. Lighting a cigarette, he indulged in ironical reflections. But, none the less, he heard the minutes ticking past, and as he was not only a creature of habit, but had also a troublesome northern conscience, he rose before the cigarette had formed its second spike of ash, and went to the piano: no matter how rebellious he felt, this was the only occupation open to him; and so he set staunchly out on the unlovely mechanical exercising, which no pianist can escape. Meanwhile, he recapitulated the scene in the concert hall, from the few anticipatory moments, when the ‘cellist related amatory adventures, to the abrupt leave he had taken of Dove at the door of the building. And in the course of doing this, he was invaded by a mild and agreeable doubt. On such shadowy impressions as these had he built up his assumption of failure! Was it possible to be so positive? The unreal state of mind in which he had played, hindered him from acting as his own judge. The fact that Schwarz had not been effusive, and that none of his friends had sought him out, admitted of more than one interpretation. The only real proof he had was Dove’s manner to him; and was not Dove always too full of his own affairs, or, at least, the affairs of those who were not present at the moment, to have any at tention to spare for the person he was actually with? At the idea that he was perhaps mistaken, Maurice grew so unsettled that he rose from the piano. But, by the time he took his seat again, he had wavered; say what he would, he could not get rid of the belief that if he had achieved anything out of the common, Madeleine would not have made it her business to avoid him. After this, however, his fluctuating hopes rallied, then sank once more, until it ended in his leaving the piano. For it was of no use trying to concentrate his thoughts until he knew.

Even as he said this to himself, his resolution was taken. There was only one person to whom he could apply, and that was Schwarz. The proceeding might be unusual, but then the circumstances in which he was placed were unusual, too. Besides, he asked neither praise nor flattery, merely a candid opinion.

If, however, he faced Schwarz on this point, there were others on which he might as well get certainty at the same time. The matter of the PRUFUNG, for instance, had still to be decided. So much depended on the choice of piece. His fingers itched towards Chopin or Mendelssohn, for the sole reason that the technique of these composers was in his blood. Whereas Beethoven!—he knew from experience how difficult it was to get a satisfactory effect out of the stern barenesses of Beethoven. They demanded a skill he could never hope to possess.

Between five and six that afternoon, he made his way to the SEBASTIAN BACH-STRASSE, where Schwarz lived. It was hot in the new, shadeless streets through which he passed, and also in crossing the JOHANNAPARK; hardly a hint of September was in the air. He walked at a slow pace, in order not to arrive too early, and, for some reason unclear to himself, avoided stepping on the joins of the paving-stones.

On hearing that he had not come for a lesson, the dirty maidservant, who opened the third-floor door to him, showed him as a visitor into the best sitting-room. Maurice remained standing, in prescribed fashion. But he had no sooner crossed the threshold than he was aware of loud voices in the adjoining room, separated from the one he was in by large foldingdoors.

“If you think,” said a woman’s voice, and broke on “think”—“if you think I’m going to endure a repetition of what happened two years ago, you’re mistaken. Never again shall she enter this house! Oh, you pig, you wretch! Klara has told me; she saw you through the keyhole—with your arm round her waist. And I know myself, scarcely a note was struck in the hour. You have her here on any pretext; you keep her in the class after all the others have gone. But this time I’m not going to sit still till the scandal comes out, and she has to leave the place. A man of your age!—the father of four children!—and this ugly little hussy of seventeen! Was there ever such a miserable woman as I am! No, she shall never enter this house again.”

“And I say she shall!” came from Schwarz so fiercely that the listener started. “Aren’t you ashamed, woman, at your age, to set a servant spying at keyholes?—or, what is more likely, spying yourself? Keep to your kitchen and your pots, and don’t dictate to me. I am the master of the house.”

“Not in a case like this. It concerns me. It concerns the children. I say she shall never enter the door again.”

“And I say she shall. Go out of the room!”

A chair grated roughly on a bare floor; a door banged with such violence that every other door in the house vibrated.

In the silence that ensued, Maurice endeavoured to make his presence known by walking about. But no one came. His eyes ranged round the room. It was, with a few slight differences, the ordinary best room of the ordinary German house. The windows were heavily curtained, and, in front of them, to the further exclusion of light and air, stood respectively a flower-table, laden with unlovely green plants, and a room-aquarium. The plush furniture was stiffly grouped round an oblong table and dotted with crochet-covers; under a glass shade was a massy bunch of wax flowers; a vertikow, decorated with shells and grasses, stood cornerwise beside the sofa; and, at the door, rose white and gaunt a monumental Berlin stove. But, in addition to this, which was DE RIGUEUR, there were personal touches: on the walls, besides the usual group of family photographs, in oval frames, hung the copy of a Madonna by Gabriel Max, two etchings after Defregger, several large group-photographs of Schwarz’s classes in different years, a framed concert programme, yellow with age, and a silhouette of Schumann. Over one of the doors hung a withered laurelwreath of imposing dimensions, and with faded silken ends, on which the inscription was still legible: DEM GROSSEN KUNSTLER, JOHANNES SCHWARZ!—Open on a chair, with an embroidered book-marker between its pages, lay ATTA TROLL; and by the stove, a battered wooden doll sat against the wall, in a relaxed attitude, with a set leer on its painted face.

Maurice waited, in growing embarrassment. He had unconsciously fixed his eyes on the doll; and, in the dead silence of the house, the senseless face of the creature ruffled his nerves; crossing the room, he knocked it over with his foot, so that its head fell with a bump on the parquet floor, where it lay in a still more tipsy position. There was no doubt that he had arrived at a most inopportune moment; it seemed, too, as if the servant had forgotten even to announce him.

On cautiously opening the door, with the idea of slipping away, he heard a child screaming in a distant room, and the mother’s voice sharp in rebuke. The servant was clattering pots and pans in the kitchen, but she heard Maurice, and put her head out of the door. Her face was red and swollen with crying.

“What!—you still here?” she said rudely. “I’d forgotten all about you.”

“It doesn’t matter—another time,” murmured Maurice.

But the girl had spoken in a loud voice to make herself heard above the screaming, which was increasing in volume, and, at her words, a door at the end of the passage, and facing down it, was opened by about an inch, and Frau Schwarz peered through the slit.

“Who is it?”

The servant tossed her head, and made no reply. She went back into her kitchen, and, after a brief absence, during which Frau Schwarz continued surreptitiously to scrutinise Maurice, came out carrying a large plateful of BERLINER PFANNKUCHEN. With these she crossed to an opposite room, and, as she there planked the plate down on the table, she announced the visitor. A surly voice muttered something in reply. As, however, the girl insisted in her sulky way, on the length of time the young man had waited, Schwarz called out stridently: “Well, then, in God’s name, let him come in! And Klara, you tell my wife, if that noise isn’t stopped, I’ll throw either her or you downstairs.”

Klara appeared again, scarlet with anger, jerked her arm at Maurice, to signify that he might do the rest for himself, and, retreating into her kitchen, slammed the door. Left thus, with no alternative, Maurice drew his heels together, gave the customary rap, and went into the room.

Schwarz was sitting at the table with his head on his hand, tracing the pattern of the cloth with the blade of his knife. A coffee-service stood on a tray before him; he had just refilled his cup, and helped himself from the dish of PFANNKUCHEN, which, freshly baked, sent an inviting odour through the room. He hardly looked up on Maurice’s entrance, and cut short the young man’s apologetic beginnings.

“Well, what is it? What brings you here?”

As Maurice hesitated before the difficulty of plunging offhand into the object of his visit, Schwarz pointed with his knife at a chair: he could not speak, for he had just put the best part of a PFANNKUCHEN in his mouth, and was chewing hard. Maurice sat down, and holding his hat by the brim, proceeded to explain that he had called on a small personal matter, which would not occupy more than a minute of the master’s time.

“It’s in connection with last night that I wished to speak to you, Herr Professor,” he said: the title, which was not Schwarz’s by right, he knew to be a sop. “I should be much obliged to you if you would give me your candid opinion of my playing. It’s not easy to judge oneself—although I must say, both at the time, and afterwards, I was not too well pleased with what I had done—that is to say . . .”

“WIE? WAS?” cried Schwarz, and threw a hasty glance at his pupil, while he helped himself anew from the dish.

Maurice uncrossed his legs, and crossed them again, the same one up.

“My time here comes to an end at Easter, Herr Professor. And it’s important for me to learn what you think of the progress I have made since being with you. I don’t know why,” he added less surely, “but of late I haven’t felt satisfied with myself. I seem to have got a certain length and to have stuck there. I should like to know if you have noticed it, too. If so, does the fault lie with my want of talent, or—”

“Or with ME, perhaps?” broke in Schwarz, who had with difficulty thus far restrained himself. He laughed offensively. “With ME—eh?” He struck himself on the chest, several times in succession, with the butt-end of his knife, that there might be no doubt to whom he referred. “Upon my soul, what next I wonder!—what next!” He ceased to laugh, and grew ungovernably angry. “What the devil do you mean by it? Do you think I’ve nothing better to do, at the end of a hard day’s work, than to sit here and give candid opinions, and discuss the progress made by each strummer who comes to me twice a week for a lesson? Oho, if you are of that opinion, you may disabuse your mind of it! I’m at your service on Tuesday and Friday afternoon, when I am paid to be; otherwise, my time is my own.”

He laid two of the cakes on top of each other, sliced them through, and put one of the pieces thus obtained in his mouth. Maurice had risen, and stood waiting for the breathing-space into which he could thrust words of apology.

“I beg your pardon, Herr Professor,” he now began. “You misunderstand me. Nothing was further from my mind than——”

But Schwarz had not finished speaking; he rapped the table with his knife-handle, and, working himself up to a white heat, continued: “But plain and plump, I’ll tell you this, Herr Guest”—he pronounced it “Gvest.” “If you are not satisfied with me, and my teaching, you’re at liberty to try some one else. If this is a preliminary to inscribing yourself under that miserable humbug, that wretched charlatan, who pretends to teach the piano, do it, and have done with it! No one will hinder you—certainly not I. You’re under no necessity to come here beforehand, and apologise, and give your reasons—none of the others did. Slink off like them, without a word! it’s the more decent way in the long run. They at least knew they were behaving like blackguards.”

“You have completely misunderstood me, Herr Schwarz. If you will give me a moment to explain——”

But Schwarz was in no mood for explanations; he went on again, paying no heed to Maurice’s interruption.

“Who wouldn’t rather break stones by the roadside than be a teacher?” he asked, and sliced and ate, sliced and ate. “Look at the years of labour I have behind me—twenty and more!—in which I’ve toiled to the best of my ability, eight and nine hours, day after day, and eternally for ends that weren’t my own!—And what return do I get for it? A new-comer only needs to wave a red flag before them, and all alike rush blindly to him. A pupil of Liszt?—bah! Who was Liszt? A barrel-organ of execution; a perverter of taste; a worthy ally of that upstart who ruined melody, harmony, and form. Don’t talk to me of Liszt!”

He spoke in spurts, blusteringly, but indistinctly, owing to the fullness of his mouth.

“But I’m not to be imposed on. I know their tricks. Haven’t I myself had pupils turn to me from Bulow and Rubinstein? Is that not proof enough? Would they have come if they hadn’t known what my method was worth? And I took them, and spared no pains to make something of them. Haven’t I a right to expect some gratitude from them in return?—Gratitude? Such a thing doesn’t exist; it’s a word without meaning, a puffing of the air. Look at him for whom I did more than for all the rest. Did I take a pfennig from him in payment?—when I saw that he had talent? Not I! And I did it all. When he came to me, he couldn’t play a scale. I gave him extra lessons without charge, I put pupils in his way, I got him scholarships, I enabled him to support his family—they would have been beggars in the street, but for me. And now soon will be! Yes, I have had his mother here, weeping at my feet, imploring me to reason with him and bring him back to his senses. SHE sees where his infamy will land them. But I? I snap my fingers in his face. He has sown, and he shall reap his sowing.—But the day will come, I know it, when he will return to me, and all the rest will follow him, like the sheep they are. Let them come! They’ll see then whether I have need of them or not. They’ll see then what they were worth to me. For I can produce others others, I say!—who will put him and his fellows out of the running. Do they think I’m done for, because of this? I’ll show them the contrary. I’ll show them! Why, I set no more store by the lot of you than I do by this plate of cakes!”

Again he ate voraciously, and for a few moments, the noise his jaws made in working was the only sound in the room. Maurice stood in the same attitude, with his hat in his hand.

“I regret more than I can express, having been the cause of annoying you, Herr Professor,” he said at length with stiff formality. “But I should like to repeat, once more, that my only object in coming here was to speak to you about last night. I felt dissatisfied with myself and . . .”

“Dissatisfied?” echoed Schwarz, bringing his jaws together with a snap. “And what business of yours is it to feel dissatisfied, I’d like to know? Leave that to me! You’ll hear soon enough, I warrant you, when I have reason to be dissatisfied. Until then, do me the pleasure of minding your own business.”

“Excuse me,” said Maurice with warmth, “if this isn’t my own business! . . . As I see it, it’s nobody’s but mine. And it seemed to me natural to appeal to you, as the only person who could decide for me whether I should have anything further to do with art, or whether I should throw it up altogether.”

Schwarz, who was sometimes not averse to a spirited opposition, caught at the one unlucky word on which he could hang his scorn.

“ART!” he repeated with jocose emphasis—he had finished the plate of cakes, risen from the table, and was picking teeth at the window. “Art!—pooh, pooh!—what’s art got to do with it? In your place, I should avoid taking such highflown words on my tongue. Call it something else. Do you think it makes a jot of difference whether you call it art or . . . pludderdump? Not so much”—and he snapped his fingers—“will be changed, though you never call it anything! Vanity!—it’s nothing but vanity! A set of raw youths inflate themselves like frogs, and have opinions on art, as on what they have eaten for their dinner.—Do your work and hold your tongue! A scale well played is worth all the words that were ever said—and that, the majority of you can’t do.”

He closed his tootpick with a snap, spat dexterously at a spittoon which stood in a corner of the room, and the interview was over.

As Maurice descended the spiral stair, he said to himself that, no matter how long he remained in Leipzig, he would never trouble Schwarz with his presence again. The man was a loose-mouthed bully. But in future he might seek out others to be the butt of his clumsy wit. He, Maurice, was too good for that.—And squaring his shoulders, he walked erectly down the street, and across the JOHANNAPARK.

But none the less, he did not go straight home. For, below the comedy of intolerance at which he was playing, lurked, as he well knew, the consciousness that his true impression of the past hour had still to be faced. He might postpone doing this; he could not shirk it. It was all very well: he might repeat to himself that he had happened on Schwarz at an inopportune moment. That did not count. For him, Maurice, the opportune moment simply did not exist; he was one of those people who are always inopportune, come and go as they will. He might have waited for days; he would never have caught Schwarz in the right mood, or in the nick of time. How he envied those fortunate mortals who always arrived at the right moment, and instinctively said the right thing! That talent had never been his. With him it was blunder.

One thing, though, that still perplexed him, was that not once, since he had been in Leipzig, had he caught a glimpse of that native goodness of heart, for which he had heard Schwarz lauded. The master had done his duty by him—nothing more. Neither had had any personal feeling for the other; and the words Schwarz had used this afternoon had only been the outcome of a long period of reserve, even of distrust. At this moment, when he was inclined to take the onus of the misunderstanding on his own shoulders, Maurice admitted, besides his constant preoccupation—or possibly just because of it—an innate lack of sympathy in himself, an inability, either of heart or of imagination, to project himself into the lives and feelings of people he did not greatly care for. Otherwise, he would not have gone to Schwarz on such an errand as today’s; he would have remembered that the master was likely to be sore and suspicious. And, from now on, things would be worse instead of better. Schwarz had no doubt been left under the impression that Maurice had wished to complain of his teaching; and impressions of this nature were difficult to erase.

There was nothing to be done, however, but to plod along in the familiar rut. He must stomach aspersions and injuries, behave as if nothing had happened. His first hot intention of turning his back on Schwarz soon yielded to more worldly-wise thoughts. Every practical consideration was against it. He might avenge himself, if he liked, by running to the rival teacher like a crossed child; Schrievers would undoubtedly receive him with open arms, and promise him all he asked. But what could he hope to accomplish, under a complete change of method, in the few months that were left? He would also have to forfeit his fees for the coming term, which were already paid. Schrievers’ lessons were expensive, and out of the small sum that remained to him to live on, it would be impossible to take more than half a dozen. Another than he might have appealed to Schrievers’ satisfaction in securing a fresh convert; but Maurice had learnt too thoroughly by now, that he was not one of those happy exceptions—exceptions by reason of their talent or their temperament—to whom a master was willing to devote his time free of charge.

Over these reflections night had fallen; and rising, he walked speedily back by the dark wood-paths. But before he reached the meadows, from which he could see lights blinking in the scattered villas, his steps had lagged again. His discouragement had nothing chimerical in it at this moment; it was part and parcel of himself.—The night was both chilly and misty, and it was late. But a painful impression of the previous evening lingered in his mind. Louise would be annoyed with him for keeping her waiting; and he shrank, in advance, from the thought of another disagreeable scene. He was not in the mood to-night, to soothe and console.

As he entered the MOZARTSTRASSE, he saw that there was a light in Madeleine’s window. She was at home, then. He imagined her sitting quiet and busy in her pleasant room, which, except for the ring of lamplight, was sunk in peaceful shadow. This was what he needed: an hour’s rest, dim light, and Madeleine’s sympathetic tact.

Without giving himself time for thought, he mounted the stair and pressed the bell-knob on the third floor.

On seeing who her visitor was, Madeleine rose with alacrity from the writing-table.

“Maurice! Is it really you?”

“I was passing. I thought I would run up . . . you’re surprised to see me?”

“Oh, well—you’re a stranger now, you know.”

She was vexed with herself for showing astonishment. Moving some books, she made room for him to sit down on the sofa, and, as he was moody, and seemed in no hurry to state why he had come, she asked if she might finish the letter she was writing.

“Make yourself comfortable. Here’s a cushion for your head.”

Through half-closed eyes, he watched her hand travelling across the sheet of note-paper, and returning at regular intervals, with a sure swoop, to begin a fresh line. There was no sound except the gentle scratching of her pen.

Madeleine did not look up till she had finished her letter and addressed the envelope. Maurice had shut his eyes.

“Are you asleep?” she roused him. “Or only tired?”

“I’ve a headache.”

“I’ll make you some tea.”

He watched her preparing it, and, by the time she handed him his cup, he was in the right mood for making her his confidant.

“Look here, Madeleine,” he said; “I came up to-night—The fact is, I’ve done a foolish thing. And I want to talk to some one about it.”

Her eyes grew more alert.

“Let me see if I can help you.”

He shook his head. “I’m afraid you can’t. But first of all, tell me frankly, how you thought I got on last night.”

“How you got on?” echoed Madeleine, unclear what this was to lead to. “Why, all right, of course.—Oh, well, if you insist on the truth!—The fact is, Maurice, you did no better and no worse than the majority of those who fill the ABEND programmes. What you didn’t do, was to reach the standard your friends had set up for you.”

“Thanks. Now listen,” and he related to her in detail his misadventure of the afternoon.

Madeleine followed with close attention. But more distinctly than what he said, she heard what he did not say. His account of the two last days, with the unintentional sidelight it threw on just those parts he wished to keep in darkness, made her aware how complicated and involved his life had become. But before he finished speaking, she brought all her practical intelligence to bear on what he said.

“Maurice!” she exclaimed, with a consternation that was three parts genuine. “I should like to shake you. How COULD you!—what induced you to do such a foolish thing?” And, as he did not speak: “If only you had come to me before, instead of after! I should have said: hold what ridiculous opinions you like yourself, but for goodness’ sake keep clear of Schwarz with them. Yes, ridiculous, and offensive, too. Anyone would have taken your talk about being dissatisfied just as he did. And after the way he has been treated of late, he’s of course doubly touchy.”

“I knew that, when it was too late. But I meant merely to speak straight out to him, Madeleine—one man to another. You surely don’t want to say he’s incapable of allowing one to have an independent opinion? If that’s the case, then he’s nothing but the wretched little tyrant Heinz declares him to be.”

“Wait till you have taught as long as he has,” said Madeleine, and, at his muttered: “God forbid!” she continued with more warmth: “You’ll know then, too, that it doesn’t matter whether your pupils have opinions or not. He has seen this kind of thing scores of times before, and knows it must be kept down.”

She paused, and looked at him. “To get on in life, one must have a certain amount of tact. You are too naive, Maurice, too unsuspecting—one of those people who would like to carry on social intercourse on a basis of absolute truth, and then be surprised that it came to an end. You are altogether a very difficult person to deal with. You are either too candid, or too reserved. There’s no middle way in you. I haven’t the least doubt that Schwarz finds you both perplexing and irritating; he takes the candour for impertinence, and the reserve for distrust.”

Maurice smiled faintly. “Go on—don’t spare me. No one ever troubled before to tell me my failings.”

“Oh, I’m quite in earnest. As I look at it, it’s entirely your own fault that you don’t stand better with Schwarz. You have never condescended to humour him, as you ought to have done. You thought it was enough to be truthful and honest, and to leave the rest to him. Well, it wasn’t. I won’t hear a word against Schwarz; he’s goodness itself to those who deserve it. A little bluff and rude at times; but he’s too busy to go about in kid gloves for fear of hurting sensitive people’s feelings.”

“Why did you never take private lessons from him?” was her next question. “I told you months ago, you remember, that you ought to.—Oh, yes, you said they were too expensive, I know, but you could have scraped a few marks together somehow. You managed to buy books, and books were quite unnecessary. One lesson a fortnight would have brought you’ more into touch with Schwarz than all you have had in the class. As it is, you don’t know him any better than he knows you. “And as she refilled his tea-cup, she added: “You quoted Heinz to me just now. But you and I can’t afford to measure people by the same standards as Heinz. We are everyday mortals, remember.—Besides, in all that counts, he is not worth Schwarz’s little finger.”

“You’re a warm advocate, Madeleine.”

“Yes, and I’ve reason to be. No one here has been as kind to me as Schwarz. I came, a complete stranger, and with not more than ordinary talent. But I went to him, and told him frankly what I wanted to do, how long I could stay, and how much money I had to spend. He helped me and advised me. He has let me study what will be of most use to me afterwards, and he takes as much interest in my future as I do myself. How can I speak anything but well of him?—What I certainly didn’t do, was to go to him and talk ambiguously about feeling dissatisfied with him . . .”

“With myself, Madeleine. Haven’t I made that clear?”

But Madeleine only sniffed.

“Well, it’s over and done with now,” she said after a pause. “And talking about it won’t mend it.—Tell me, rather, what you intend to do. What are your plans?”

“Plans? I don’t know. I haven’t any. Sufficient unto the day, etc.”

But of this she disapproved with open scorn. “Rubbish! When your time here is all but up! And no plans!—One thing, I can tell you anyhow, is, after to-day you needn’t rely on Schwarz for assistance. You’ve spoilt your chances with him. The only way of repairing the mischief would be the lesson I spoke of—one a week as long as you re here.”

“I couldn’t afford it.”

“No, I suppose not,” she said sarcastically, and tore a piece of paper that came under her fingers into narrow strips. “Tell me,” she added a moment later, in a changed tone: “where do you intend to settle when you return to England? And have you begun to think of advertising yourself yet?”

He waved his hand before his face as if he were chasing away a fly. “For God’s sake, Madeleine! . . . these alluring prospects!”

“Pray, what else do you expect to do?”

“Well, the truth is, I . . . I’m not going back to England at all. I mean to settle here.”

Madeleine repressed the exclamation that rose to her lips, and stooped to brush something off the skirt of her dress. Her face was red when she raised it. She needed no further telling; she understood what his words implied as clearly as though it were printed black on white before her. But she spoke in a casual tone.

“However are you going to make that possible?”

He endeavoured to explain.

“I don’t envy you,” she said drily, when he had finished. “You hardly realise what lies before you, I think. There are people here who are glad to get fifty pfennigs an hour, for piano lessons. Think of plodding up and down stairs, all day long, for fifty pfennigs an hour!”

He was silent.

“While in England, with a little tact and patience, you would soon have more pupils than you could take at five shillings.”

“Tact and patience mean push and a thick skin. But don’t worry! I shall get on all right. And if I don’t—life’s short, you know.”

“But you are just at: the beginning of it—and ridiculously young at that! Good Heavens, Maurice!” she burst out, unable to contain herself. “Can’t you see that after you’ve been at home again for a little while, things that have seemed so important here will have. shrunk into their right places? You’ll be glad to have done with them then, when you are in orderly circumstances again.”

“I’m afraid not,” answered the young man. “I’m not a good forgetter.”

“A good forgetter!” repeated Madeleine, and laughed sarcastically. She was going on to say more, but, just at this moment, a clock outside struck ten, and Maurice sprang to his feet.

“So late already? I’d no idea. I must be off.”

She stood by, and watched him look for his hat.

“Here it is.” She picked it up, and handed it to him, with an emphasised want of haste.

“Good night, Madeleine. Thanks for the truth. I knew I could depend on you.”

“It was well meant. And the truth is always beneficial, you know. Good night.—Come again, soon.”

He heard her last words half-way down the stairs, which he took two at a time.

The hour he had now to face was a painful ending to an unpleasant day. It was not merely the fact that he had kept Louise waiting, in aching suspense, for several hours. It now came out that, after their disagreement of the previous night, she had confidently expected him to return to her early in the day, had expected contrition and atonement. That he had not even suspected this made her doubly bitter against him. In vain he tried to excuse himself, to offer explanations. She would not listen to him, nor would she let him touch her. She tore her dress from between his fingers, brushed his hand off her arm; and, retreating into a corner of the room, where she stood like an animal at bay, she poured out over him her accumulated resentment. All she had ever suffered at his hands, all the infinitesimal differences there had been between them, from the beginning, the fine points in which he had failed—things of which he had no knowledge—all these were raked up and cast at him till, numb with pain, he lost even the wish to comfort her. Sitting down at the table, he laid his head on his folded arms.

At his feet were the fragments of the little clock, which, in her anger at his desertion of her, she had trodden to pieces.

VI.


Their first business the next morning was to buy another clock. By daylight, Louise was full of remorse at what she had done, and in passing the writing-table, averted her eyes. They went out early to a shop in the GRIMMAISCHESTRASSE; and Maurice stood by and watched her make her choice.

She loved to buy, and entered into the purchase with leisurely enjoyment. The shopman and his assistant spared themselves no trouble in fetching and setting out their wares. Louise handled each clock as it was put before her, discussed the merits of different styles, and a faint colour mounted to her cheeks over the difficulty of deciding between two which she liked equally well. She had pushed up her veil; it swathed her forehead like an Eastern woman’s. Her eagerness, which was expressed in a slight unsteadiness of nostril and lip, would have had something childish in it, had it not been for her eyes. They remained heavy and unsmiling; and the disquieting half-rings below them were more bluely brown than ever. Leaning sideways. against the counter, Maurice looked away from them to her hands; her fingers were entirely without ornament, and he would have liked to load them with rings. As it was, he could not even pay for the clock she chose; it cost more than he had to spend in a month.

In the street again, she said she was hungry, and, glad to be able to add his mite to her pleasure, he took her by the arm and steered her to the CAFE FRANCAIS, where they had coffee and ices. The church-steeples were booming eleven when they emerged; it did not seem worth while going home and settling down to work. Instead, they went to the ROSENTAL.

It was a brilliant autumn day, rich in light and shade, and there was only a breath abroad of the racy freshness that meant subsequent decay. The leaves were turning red and orange, but had not begun to fall; the sky was deeply blue; outlines were sharp and precise. They were both in a mood this morning to be susceptible to their surroundings; they were even eager to be affected by them, and made happy. The disagreements of the two preceding nights were like bad dreams, which they were anxious to forget, or at least to avoid thinking of. Her painful, unreasonable treatment of him, the evening before, had not been touched on between them; after his incoherent attempts to justify himself, after his bitter self-reproaches, when she lay sobbing in his arms, they had both, with one accord, been silent. Neither of them felt any desire for open-hearted explanations; they were careful not to stir up the depths anew. Louise was very quiet; had it not been for her eyes, he might have believed her happy. But here, just as an hour before in the watchmaker’s shop, they brooded, unable to forget. And yet there was a pliancy about her this morning, a readiness to meet his wishes, which, as he walked at her side, made him almost content. The old, foolish dreams awoke in him again, and vistas opened, of a gentle comradeship, which might still come true, when the strenuous side of her love for him had worn itself out. If only an hour like the present could have lasted indefinitely!

It was a happy morning. They ended it with an improvised lunch at the KAISERPARK; and it remained imprinted on their minds as an unexpected patch of colour, in an unending row of grey days, given up to duty.

The next one, and the next again, Louise continued in the same yielding mood, which was wholly different from the emotional expansiveness of the past weeks. Maurice took a glad advantage of her willingness to please him, and they had several pleasant walks together: to Napoleon’s battlefields; along the GRUNE GASSE and the POETENWEG to Schiller’s house at Gohlis; and into the heart of the ROSENTAL—DAS WILDE ROSENTAL—where it was very solitary, and where the great trees seemed to stagger under their load of stained leaves.

A burst of almost July radiance occurred at this time; and one day, Louise expressed a wish to go to the country, in order that, by once more being together for a whole day on end, they might relive in fancy the happy weeks they had spent on the Rochlitzer Berg. It was never her way to urge over-much, which made it hard to refuse her; so it was arranged that they should set off betimes the following Saturday.

Maurice had his reward in the cry of pleasure she gave when he wakened her to tell her that it was a fine day.

“Get up, dear! It’s less than an hour till the train goes.”

For the first time for weeks, Louise was her impetuous self again. She threw things topsy-turvy in the room. It was he who drew her attention to an unfastened hook, and an unbound ribbon. She only pressed forward.

“Make haste!—oh, make haste! We shall be late.”

An overpowering smell of newly-baked rolls issued from the bakers’ shops, and the errand-boys were starting out with their baskets. Women and house-porters were coming out to wash pavements and entrances: the collective life of the town was waking up to another uneventful day; but they two were hastening off to long hours of sunlight and fresh air, unhampered by the passing of time, or by fallacious ideas of duty; were setting out for a new bit of world, to strange meals taken in strange places, reached by white roads, or sequestered wood-paths. In the train, they were crushed between the baskets of the marketwomen, who were journeying from one village to another. These sat with their wizened hands clasped on their high stomachs, or on the handles of their baskets, and stared, like stupid, placid animals, at the strange young foreign couple before them. Partly for the frolic of astonishing them, and also because he was happy at seeing Louise so happy, Maurice kissed her hand; but it was she who astonished them most. When she gave a cry, or used her hands with a sudden, vivid effect, or flashed her white teeth in a smile, every head in the carriage was turned towards her; and when, in addition, she was overtaken by a fit of loquacity, she was well-nigh devoured by eyes.

They did not travel as far as they had intended. From the carriage window, she saw a wayside place that took her fancy.

“Here, Maurice; let us get out here.”

Having breakfasted, and left their bags at an inn, they strayed at random along an inviting road lined with apple-trees. When Louise grew tired, they rested in the arbour of a primitive GASTHAUS, and ate their midday meal. Afterwards, in a wood, he spread a rug for her, and she lay in a nest of sun-spots. Only their own voices broke the silence. Then she fell asleep, and, until she opened her eyes again, and called to him in surprise, no sound was to be heard but the sudden, crisp rustling of some bird or insect. When evening fell, they returned to their lodging, ate their supper in the smoky public room—for, outside, mists had risen—and then before them stretched, undisturbed, the long evening and the longer night, to be spent in a strange room, of which they had hitherto not suspected the existence, but which, from now on, would be indissolubly bound up with their other memories.

The first day passed in such a manner was as flawless as any they had known in the height of summer—with all the added attractions of closer intimacy. In its course, the shadows lifted from her eyes; and Maurice ceased to remember that he had made a mess of his affairs. But the very next one failed—as far as Louise was concerned—to reach the same level: it was like a flower ever so slightly overblown. The lyric charms that had so pleased her—the dewy freshness of the morning, the solitude, the unbroken sunshine—were frail things, and, snatched with too eager a hand, crumbled beneath the touch. They were not made to stand the wear and tear of repetition. It was also impossible, she found, to live through again days such as they had spent at Rochlitz; time past was past irrevocably, with all that belonged to it. And it was further, a mistake to believe that a more intimate acquaintance meant a keener pleasure; it was just the stimulus of strangeness, the piquancy of feeling one’s way, that had made up half the fascination of the summer.

With sure instinct, Louise recognised this, even while she exclaimed with delight. And her heart sank: not until this moment had she known how high her hopes had been, how firmly she had pinned her faith upon the revival of passion which these days were to bring to pass. The knowledge that this had been a delusion, was hard to bear. In thought, she was merciless to herself, when, on waking, the second morning, she looked with unexpectant eyes over the day that lay before her. Could nothing satisfy her, she asked herself? Could she not be content for twenty-four hours on end? Was it eternally her lot to come to the end of things, before they had properly begun? It seemed, always, as if she alone must be pressing forward, without rest. Here, on the second of these days of love and sunshine, she saw, with absolute clearness, that neither this nor any other day had anything extraordinary to give her; and sitting silent at dinner, under an arbour of highly-coloured creeper, she was overcome by such a laming discouragement, that she laid her knife and fork down, and could eat no more.

Maurice, watching her across the table, believed that she was over-tired, and filled up her glass with wine.

But she did not yield without a struggle. And it was not merely rebellion against the defects of her own nature, which prompted her. The prospect of the coming months filled her with dismay. When this last brief spell of pleasure was over, there was nothing left, to which she could look forward. The approaching winter stretched before her like a starless night; she was afraid to let her mind dwell on it. What was she to do?—what was to become of her, when the short dark days came down again, and shut her in? The thought of it almost drove her mad. Desperate with fear, she shut her eyes and went blindly forward, determined to extract every particle of pleasure, or, at least, of oblivion, that the present offered.

Under these circumstances, the poor human element in their relations became once again, and more than ever before, the pivot on which their lives turned. Louise aimed deliberately at bringing this about. Further, she did what she had never yet done: she brought to bear on their intercourse all her own hardwon knowledge, and all her arts. She drew from her store of experience those trifling, yet weighty details, which, once she has learned them, a woman never forgets. And, in addition to this, she took advantage of the circumstances in which they found themselves, utilising to the full the stimulus of strange times and places: she fired the excitement that lurked in surreptitious embrace and surrender, under all the dangers of a possible surprise. She was perverse and capricious; she would turn away from him till she reduced him to despair; then to yield suddenly, with a completeness that threatened to undo them both. Her devices were never-ending. Not that they were necessary: for he was helpless in her hands when she assumed the mastery. But she could not afford to omit one of the means to her end, for she had herself to lash as well as him. And so, once more, as at the very beginning, hand grew to be a weight in hand, something alive, electric; and any chance contact might rouse a blast in them. She neither asked nor Showed mercy. Drop by drop, they drained each other of vitality, two sufferers, yet each thirsty for the other’s life-blood; for, with this new attitude on her part, an element of cruelty had entered into their love. When, with her hands on his shoulders, her insatiable lips apart, Louise put back her head and looked at him, Maurice was acutely aware of the hostile feeling in her. But he, too, knew what it was; for, when he tried to urge prudence on her, she only laughed at him; and this low, reckless laugh, her savage eyes, and morbid pallor, invariably took from him every jot of concern.

They returned to Leipzig towards the middle of the first week, in order not to make their absence too conspicuous. But they had arranged to go away again, on the following Saturday, and, in the present state of things, the few intervening days seemed endless. Louise shut herself up, and would see little of him.

The next week, and the next again, were spent in the same fashion. A fine and mild October ran its course. For the fourth journey, towards the end of the month, they had planned to return to Rochlitz. At the last moment, however, Maurice opposed the scheme, and they left the train at Grimma. It was Friday, and a superb autumn day. They put up, not in the town itself, but at an inn about a mile and a half distant from it. This stood on the edge of a wood, was a favourite summer resort, and had lately been enlarged by an additional wing. Now, it was empty of guests save themselves. They occupied a large room in the new part of the building, at the end of a long corridor, which was shut off by a door from the rest of the house. They were utterly alone; there was no need for them even to moderate their voices. In the early morning hours, and on the journey there, Maurice had thought he noticed something unusual about Louise, and, more than once, he had asked her if her head ached. But soon he forgot his solicitude.

Next morning, he felt an irresistible inclination to go out: opening the window, he leaned on the sill. A fresh, pleasant breeze was blowing; it bent the tops of the pines, and drove the white clouds smoothly over the sky. He suggested that they should walk to the ruined cloister of Nimbschen; but Louise responded very languidly, and he had to coax and persuade. By the time she was ready to leave the untidy room, the morning was more than half over, and the shifting clouds had balled themselves into masses. Before the two emerged from the wood, an even network of cloud had been drawn over the whole sky; it looked like rain.

They walked as usual in silence, little or nothing being left to say, that seemed worth the exertion of speech. Each step cost Louise a visible effort; her arms hung slack at her sides; her very hands felt heavy. The pallor of her face had a greyish tinge in it. Maurice began to regret having hurried her out against her will.

They were on a narrow path skirting a wood, when she suddenly expressed a wish for some tall bulrushes that grew beside a stream, some distance below. Maurice went down to the edge of the water and began to cut the rushes. But the ground was marshy, and the finest were beyond his reach.

On the path at the top of the bank, Louise stood and followed his movements. She watched his ineffectual efforts to seize the further reeds, saw how they slipped back from between his hands; she watched him take out his knife and open it, endeavour once more to reach those he wanted, and, still unsuccessful, choose a dry spot to sit down on; saw him take off his boots and stockings, then rise and go cautiously out on the soft ground. Ages seemed to pass while she watched him do these trivial things; she felt as if she were gradually turning to stone as she stood. How long he was about it! How deliberately he moved! And she had the odd sensation, too, that she knew beforehand everything he would and would not do, just as if she had experienced it already. His movements were of an impossible circumstantiality, out of all proportion to the trifling service she had asked of him; for, at heart, she cared as little about the rushes as about anything else. But it was an unfortunate habit of his, and one she noticed more and more as time went on, to make much of paltry details, which, properly, should have been dismissed without a second thought. It implied a certain tactlessness, to underline the obvious in this fashion. The very way, for instance, he stretched out his arm, unclasped his knife, leant forward, and then stooped back to lay the cut reeds on the bank. Oh, she was tired!—tired to exasperation!—of his ways and actions—as tired as she was of his words, and of the thousand and one occurrences, daily repeated, that made up their lives. She would have liked to creep away, to hide herself in an utter seclusion; while, instead, it was her lot to assist, hour after hour, at making much of what, in the depths of her soul, did not concern her at all. Nothing, she felt, would ever really concern her again. She gazed fixedly before her, at him, too, but without seeing him, till her sight was blurred; trees and sky, stream and rushes, swam together in a formless maze. And all of a sudden, while she was still blind, there ran through her such an intense feeling of aversion, such a complete satedness with all she had of late felt and known, that she involuntarily took a step backwards, and pressed her palms together, in order to hinder herself from screaming aloud. She could bear it no longer. In a flash, she grasped that she was unable, utterly unable, to face the day that was before her. She knew in advance every word, every look and embrace that it held for her: rather than undergo them afresh, she would throw herself into the water at her feet. Anywhere, anywhere!—only to get away, to be alone, to cover her face and see no more! Her hand went to her throat; her breath refused to come; she shivered so violently that she was afraid she would fall to the ground.

Maurice, all unsuspecting, sat with his back to her, and laced his boots.

But he was startled into an exclamation, when he climbed the bank and saw the state she was in.

“Louise! Good Heavens, what’s the matter? Are you ill?”

He took her by the arm, and shook her a little, to arrest her attention.

“Maurice! . . . no!” Her voice was hoarse. “Oh, let me go home!”

He repeated the words in amazed alarm. “But what is it, darling? Are you ill? Are you cold?—that you’re trembling like this?”

“No . . . yes. Oh, I want to go home !—back to Leipzig.”

“Why, of course, if you want to. At once.”

The rushes lay forgotten on the ground. Without further words, they hastened to the inn. There, Maurice helped her to throw her things into the bag she had not wholly unpacked, and, having paid the bill, led her, with the same feverish haste, through the woods and town to the railway-station. He was full of distressed concern for her, but hardly dared to show it. for, to all his questions, she only shook her head. Walking at his side, she dug her nails into her palms till she felt the blood come, in her effort to conceal and stifle the waves of almost physical repugnance that passed through her, making it impossible for her to bear even the touch of his hand. In the train, she leaned back in the corner, and, shutting her eyes, pretended to be asleep.

They took a droschke home; the driver whipped up his horse; the landlady was called in to make the first fire of the season. Louise went to bed at once. She wanted nothing, she said, but to lie still in the darkened room. He should go away; she preferred to be alone. No, she was not ill, only tired, but so tired that she could not keep her eyes open. She needed rest: tomorrow she would be all right again. He should please, please, leave her, and go away. And, turning her face to the wall, she drew the bedclothes over her head.

At his wits’ end to know what it all meant, Maurice complied. But at home in his room, he could settle to nothing; he trembled at every footstep on the stair. No message came, however, and when he had seen her again that evening, he felt more reassured.

“It’s nothing—really nothing. I’m only tired . . . yes, it was too much. just let me be, Maurice—till to-morrow.” And she shut her eyes again, and kept them shut, till she heard the door close behind him.

He was reassured, but still, for the greater part of the night, he lay sleepless. He was always agitated anew by the abrupt way in which Louise passed from mood to mood; but this was something different; he could not understand it. In the morning, however, he saw things in a less tragic light; and, on sitting down to the piano, he experienced almost a sense of satisfaction at the prospect of an undisturbed day’s work.

Meanwhile Louise shrank, even in memory, from the feverish weeks just past, as she had shrunk that day from his touch. And she struggled to keep her thoughts from dwelling on them. But it was the first time in her life that she felt a like shame and regret; and she could not rid her mind of the haunting images. She knew the reason, too; darkness brought the knowledge. She had believed, had wished to believe, that the failure was her fault, a result of her unstable nature; whereas the whole undertaking had been merely a futile attempt to bolster up the impossible, to stave off the inevitable, to postpone the end. And it had all been in vain. The end! It would come, as surely as day followed night—had perhaps indeed already come; for how else could the nervous aversion be explained, which had seized her that day? What, during the foregoing weeks, she had tried not to hear; what had sounded in her ears like the tone of a sunken bell, was there at last, horrible and deafening. She had ceased to care for him, and ceased, surfeited with abundance, with the same vehement abruptness as she had once begun. The swiftness with which things had swept to a conclusion, had, confessedly, been accelerated by her unhappy temperament; but, however gentle the gradient, the point for which they made would have remained the same. What she was now forced to recognise was, that the whole affair had been no more than an episode; and the fact of its having begun less brutally than others, had not made it a whit better able than these to withstand decay.

A bitter sense of humiliation came over her. What was she? Not a week ago—she could count the days on her fingers—the mere touch of his hand on her hair had made her thrill; and now the sole feeling she was conscious of was one of dislike. She looked back over the course of her relations with him, and many things, unclear before, became plain to her. She had gone into the intimacy deliberately, with open eyes, knowing that she cared for him only in a friendly way. She had believed, then, that the gift of herself would mean little to her, while it would secure her a friend and companion. And then, too—she might as well be quite honest with herself—she had nourished a romantic hope that a love which commenced as did this shy, adoring tenderness, would give her something finer and more enduring than she had hitherto known. Wrong, all wrong, from beginning to end! It had been no better than those loves which made no secret of their aim and did not strut about draped in false sentiment. The end of all was one and the same. But besides this, it had come to mean more to her than she had ever dreamt of allowing. You could not play with fire, it seemed, and not be burned. Or, at least, she could not. She was branded with wounds. The fierce demands in her, over which she had no control, had once more reared their heads and got the mastery of her, and of him, too. There had been no chance, beneath their scorching breath, for a pallid delicacy of feeling.

It did not cross her mind that she would conceal what she felt from him. Secrecy implied a mental ingenuity, a tiresome care of word and deed. His eyes must be opened; he, too, must learn to say the horrid word “end.” How infinitely thankful she had now reason to be that she had not yielded to his persuasions, and married him! No, she had never seriously considered the idea, even at the height of her folly. But then, she was never quite sure of herself; there was always a chance that some blind impulse would spring up in her and overthrow her resolutions. Now, he must suffer, too—and rightly. For, after all, he had also been to blame. If only he had not importuned her so persistently, if only he had let her alone, nothing of this would have happened, and there would be no reason for her to lie and taunt herself. But, in his silent, obstinate way, he had given her no peace; and you could not—she could not!—go on living unmoved, at the side of a person who was crazy with love for you.

For two nights, she slept little. On the third, worn out, she fell, soon after midnight, into a deep sleep, from which, the following morning, she wakened refreshed.

When Maurice came, about half-past twelve, her eyes followed him with a new curiosity, as he drew up a chair and sat down at her bedside. She wondered what he would say when he knew, and what change would come over his face. But she made no beginning to enlightening him. In his presence, she was seized by an ungovernable desire to be distracted, to be taken out of herself. Also, it was not, she began to grasp, a case of stating a simple fact, in simple words; it meant all the circumstantiality of complicated explanation; it meant a still more murderous tearing up of emotion. And besides this, there was another factor to be reckoned with, and that was the peculiar mood he was in. For, as soon as he entered the room, she felt that he was different from what he had been the day before.

She heard the irritation in his voice, as he tried to persuade her to come out to dinner with him. In fancy she saw it all: saw them walking together to the restaurant, at a brisk pace, in order to waste none of his valuable time; saw dinner taken quickly, for the same reason; saw them parting again at the house-door; then herself in the room alone, straying from sofa to window and back again, through the long hours of the long afternoon. A kind of mental nausea seized her at the thought that the old round was to begin afresh. She brought no answer over her lips. And after waiting some time in vain for her to speak, Maurice rose, and, still under the influence of his illhumour, drew up the three blinds, and opened a window. A cold, dusty sunlight poured into the room.

Louise gave a cry, and put her hands to her eyes.

“The room is so close, and you’re so pale,” he said in selfexcuse. “Do you know you’ve been shut up in here for three days now?”

“My head aches.”

“It will never be any better as long as you lie there. Dearest, what is it? WHAT’S the matter with you?”

“You’re unhappy about something,” he went on, a moment later. “What is it? Won’t you tell me?”

“Nothing,” she murmured. She lay and pressed her palms to her eyeballs, so firmly that when she removed them, the room was a blur. Maurice, standing at the window, beat a tattoo on the pane. Then, with his back to her, he began to speak. He blamed himself for what he called the folly of the past weeks. “I gave way when I should have been firm. And this is the result. You have got into a nervous, morbid state. But it’s nonsense to think it can go on.”

For the first time, she was conscious of a somewhat critical attitude on his part; he said “folly” and “nonsense.” But she made no comment; she lay and let his words go over her. They had so little import now. All the words that had ever been said could not alter a jot of what she felt—of her intense inward experience.

Her protracted silence, her heavy indifference infected him; and for some time the only sound to be heard was that of his fingers drumming on the glass. When he spoke again, he seemed to be concluding an argument with himself; and indeed, on this particular day, Maurice found it hard to detach his thoughts from himself, for any length of time.

“It’s no use, dear. Things can’t go on like this any longer. I’ve got to buckle down to work again. I’ve . . . I. . .I haven’t told you yet: Schwarz is letting me play the Mendelssohn.”

She thought she would have to cry aloud; here it was again: the chilling atmosphere of commonplace, which her nerves were expected to live and be well in; the well-worn phrases, the “must this,” and “must that,” the confident expectation of interest in doings that did not interest her at all. She could not—it would kill her to begin it anew! And, in spite of her efforts at repression, an exclamation forced its way through her lips.

At this, Maurice went quickly back to her.

“Forgive me . . . talking about myself, when you are not well.”

He knelt down beside the bed, and removed her hands from her face. She did not open her eyes, kept quite still. At this moment, she felt mainly curious: would the strange aversion to his touch return? He was kissing her palms, pressing them to his face. She drew a long, deep sigh: it did not come back. On the contrary, the touch of his hand was pleasant to her. He stroked her cheek, pushed back a loose piece of hair from her forehead; and, as he did this, she was aware of the old sense of well-being. Beneath his hand, irksome thoughts fell away. Backwards and forwards it travelled, as gently as though she were a sick person. And, little by little, so gradually that, at first, she herself was not conscious of them, other wishes came to life in her again. She began to desire more than mere peace. The craving came over her to forget her self-torturings, and to forget them in a dizzy whirl. Reaching up, she put her arms round his neck, and drew him down. He kissed her eyelids. At this she opened her eyes, enveloping him in a look he had learnt to know well. For a second he sustained it: his life was concentrated in the liquid fire of these eyes, in these eager parted lips. She pressed them to his, and he felt a smart, like a bee’s sting.

With a jerk, he thrust her arms away, and rose to his feet; to keep his balance he was obliged to grasp the back of a chair. Taking out his handkerchief, he pressed it to his lip.

“Maurice!”

“It’s late . . . I must go . . . I must work, I tell you.” He stood staring at the drop of blood on his handkerchief.

“Maurice!”

He looked round him in a confused way; he was strangely angry, and hasty to no purpose. “Won’t you . . . then you won’t come out with me?”

“Maurice!” The word was a cry.

“Oh, it’s foolish! You don’t know what you’re doing.” He had found his coat, and was putting it on, with unsure hands. “Then, if . . . this evening, then! As usual. I’ll come as usual.”

The door shut behind him; a minute later, the street-door banged. At the sound Louise seemed to waken. Starting up in bed, she threw a wild look round the empty room; then, turned on her face, and bit a hole in the linen of the pillow.

Maurice worked that afternoon as though his future was conditioned by the number of hours he could practise before evening. Throughout these three days, indeed, his zeal had been unabating. He would never have yielded so calmly to the morbid fashion in which she had cooped herself up, had not the knowledge that his time was his own again, been something of a relief to him. Yes, at first, relief was the word for what he felt. For, after making one good resolution on top of another, he had, when the time came, again been a willing defaulter. He had allowed the chance to slip of making good, by redoubled diligence, his foolish mistake with regard to Schwarz. Now it was too late; though the master had let him have his way in the choice of piece for the coming PRUFUNG, it had mainly been owing to indifference. If only he did not prove unequal to the choice now it was made! For that he was out of the rut of steady work, was clear to him as soon as he put his hands to the piano.

But he had never been so forlornly energetic as on this particular afternoon. Yet there was something mechanical, too, about his playing; neither heart nor brain was in it. Mendelssohn’s effective roulades ran thoughtlessly from his fingers: in the course of a single day, he had come to feel a deep contempt for the emptiness of these runs and flourishes. He pressed forward, however, hour after hour without a break, as though he were a machine wound up for the purpose. But with the entrance of dusk, his fictitious energy collapsed. He did not even trouble to light the lamp, but, throwing himself on the sofa, covered his eyes with his arm.

The twilight induced sensations like itself—vague, formless, intolerable. A sudden recognition of the uselessness of human striving grew up in him, with the rapidity of a fungus. Effort and work, ambition and success, alike led nowhere, were so many blind alleys: ambition ended in smoke; success was a fleeing phantom, which one sought in vain to grasp. To the great mass of mankind, it was more than immaterial whether one of its units toiled or no; not a single soul was benefited by it. Most certainly not the toiler himself. It was only given to a few to achieve anything; the rest might stand aside early in the day. Nothing of their labours would remain, except the scars they themselves bore.

He was unhappy; to-night he knew it with a painful clearness. The shock had been too rude. For him, change had to be prepared, to come gradually. Sooner or later, no doubt, he would right himself again; but in the meantime his plight was a sorry one. It was his duty to protect himself against another onslaught of the kind—to protect them both. For there was no blinking the fact: a few more weeks like the foregoing, and they would have been two of the wretchedest creatures on earth. They were miserable enough as it was, he in his, she in her own way. It must never happen again. She, too, had doubtless become sensible of this, in the course of the past three days. But had she? Could he say that? What had she thought?—what had she felt? And he told himself that was just what he would never know.

He saw her as she had lain that morning, her arms long and white on the coverlet. He recalled all he had said, and tried to piece things together; an inner meaning seemed to be eluding him. Again, in memory, he heard the half-stifled cry that had drawn him to her side, felt her hands in his, the springy resistance of her hair, the delicate skin of her eyelids. Then, he had not understood the sudden impulse that had made him spring to his feet. But now, as he lay in the dusk, and summed up these things, a new thought, or hardly a thought so much as an intuition, flashed through his mind, instantly to take entire possession of him—just as if it had all along been present, in waiting. Simultaneously, the colour mounted to his face: he refused to harbour such a thought, and put it from him, angry with himself. But it was not to be kept down; it rose again, in an inexplicable way—this suggestion, which was like a slur cast on her. Why, he demanded of himself, should it not have occurred to him before?—once, twenty, a hundred times? For the same thing had often happened: times without number, she had striven to keep him at her side. Was its presence to-day a result of his aimless irritation? Or was it because, after holding him at arm’s length for three whole days, she had asked, on returning to him, neither affection nor comradeship, only the blind gratification of sense?

He did not know. But forgotten hints and trifles—words, acts, looks— which he had never before considered consciously, now recurred to him as damning evidence. With his arm still across his eyes, he lay and let it work in him; let doubts and frightful uncertainties grow up in his brain; suffered the most horrible suffering of all—doubt of the one beloved. He seemed to be looking at things from a new point, seeing them in different proportions—all his own poor hopes and beliefs as well and, while the spasm of distrust lasted, he felt inclined to doubt whether she had ever really cared for him. He even questioned his own feeling for her, seeking to discover whether it, too, had not been based on a mere sensual fancy. He saw them satisfying an instinct, without reason and without nobility. And, by this light, he read a reason for the past months, which made him groan aloud.

He rose and paced the room. If what he was thinking of her were true, then it would be better for both their sakes if he never saw her again. But, even while he said this, he knew that he would have to see her, and without loss of time. What he needed was to stand face to face with her, to look into her eyes, which, whatever they might do, had never learned to hide the truth, and there gain the certainty that his imaginings were monstrous—the phantoms of a melancholy October twilight.

It was nearly nine o’clock, but there was no light in her room. He pictured her lying in the dark, and was filled with remorse. But he said her name in vain; the room was empty. Lighting the lamp, he saw that the bedclothes had been thrown back over the foot-end of the unmade bed, as though she had only just left it. The landlady said that she had gone out, two hours previously, without leaving any message. All he could do was to sit down and wait; and in the long half-hour that now went by, the black thoughts that had driven him there were forgotten. His only wish was to have her safe beside him again.

Towards ten o’clock he heard approaching sounds. A moment later Louise came in. She blinked at the light, and began to unfasten her veil before she was over the threshold.

He gave a sigh of relief. “At last! Thank goodness! Where have you been?”

“Did you think I was lost? Have you been here long?”

“For hours. Where else should I be? But you—where have you been?”

Standing before the table, she fumbled with the veil, which she had pulled into a knot. He did not offer to help her; he stood looking at her, and both voice and look were a little stern.

“Why did you go out?”

She did not look at him. “Oh, just for a breath of air. I felt I . . . I HAD to do something.”

From the moment of her entrance, even before she had spoken, Maurice was aware of that peculiar aloofness in her, which invariably made itself felt when she was engrossed by something in which he had no part.

“That’s hardly a reason,” he said nervously.

With the veil stretched between her two hands, she turned her head. “Do you want another? Well, after you left me to-day, I lay and thought and thought . . . till I felt I should go mad, if I lay there any longer.”

“Yes, but all of a sudden, like this! After being in bed for three days . . . to go out and . . .”

“But I have not been ill!”

“Go out and wander about the streets, at night.”

“I didn’t mean to be so late,” she said, and folded the veil with an exaggerated care. “But I was hindered; I had a little adventure.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing much. A man followed me—and I couldn’t get rid of him.”

“Go on, please!” He was astonished at the severity of his own voice.

“Oh, don’t be so serious, Maurice!” She had folded the veil to a neat square, stuck three hatpins in it, and thrown it with her hat and jacket on the sofa. “No one has tried to murder me,” she said, and raised both her hands to her hair. “I was standing before Haase’s window—the big jeweller’s in the PETERSTRASSE, you know. I’ve always loved jewellers’ windows—especially at night, when they’re lighted up. As a child, I thought heaven must be like the glitter of diamonds on blue velvet—the Jasper Sea, you know, and the pearly floor.”

“Never mind that now!”

“Well, I was standing there, looking in, longer perhaps than I knew. I felt that some one was beside me, but I didn’t see who it was, till I heard a man’s voice say: ‘SCHONE SACHEN, FRAULEIN, WAS?’ Of course, I took no notice; but I didn’t run away, as if I were afraid of him. I went on looking into the window, till he said: ‘DARF ICH IHNEN ETWASS KAUFEN?‘and more nonsense of the same kind. Then I thought it was time to go. He followed me down the PETERSTRASSE, and when I came to the ROSSPLATZ, he was still behind me. So I determined to lead him a dance. I’ve been walking about, with him at my heels, for over an hour. In a quiet street where there was no one in sight, he spoke to me again, and refused to go away until I told him where I lived. I pretended to agree, and, on the condition that he didn’t follow me any further, I gave him a number in the QUERSTRASSE; and in case he broke his. word, I came home that way. I hope he’ll spend a pleasant evening looking for me.”

She laughed—her fitful, somewhat unreal laugh, which was always displeasing to him. To-night, taken in conjunction with her story, and her unconcerned way of telling it, it jarred on him as never before.

“Let me catch him here, and I’ll make it impossible for him to insult a woman again!” he cried. “For it is an insult though you don’t see it in that light. You laugh as you tell it, as if something amusing had happened to you. You are so strange sometimes.—Tell me, dearest, WHY did you go out? When I asked you, you wouldn’t come.”

“No. Then I wasn’t in the mood.” Her smile faded.

“No. But after dark—and quite alone—then the mood takes you.”

“But I’ve done it hundreds of times before. I can take care of myself.”

“You are never to do it again—do you hear?—Why didn’t you give the fellow in charge?” he asked a moment later, in a burst of distrust.

Again Louise laughed. “Oh, a German policeman would find that rather funny than otherwise. It’s the rule, you know, not the exception. And the same thing has happened to me before. So often that it’s literally not worth mentioning. I shouldn’t have spoken of it to-night if you hadn’t been so persistent. Besides,” she added as an afterthought—and, in the face of his grave displeasure, she found herself wilfully exaggerating the levity of her tone—“besides, this wasn’t the kind of man one gives in charge. Not the usual commercial-traveller type. A Graf, or Baron, at least.”

He was as nettled as she had intended him to be. “You talk just as if you had had experience in the class of man.—Do you really think it makes things any better? To my mind, it’s a great deal worse.—But the thing is—you don’t know how . . . You’re not to go out alone again at night. I forbid it. This is the first time for weeks; and see what happens! And it’s notyou may well say it has happened to you before. I don’t know what it is, but—The very cab-drivers look at you as they’ve no business to—as they don’t look at other women!”

“Well, can I help that?—how men look at me?” she asked indignantly. “Do you wish to say it’s my fault? That I do anything to make them?”

“No. Though it might be better if you did,” he answered gloomily. “The unpleasant thing is, though you do nothing . . . that it’s there all the same . . . something . . . I don’t know what.”

“No, I don’t think you do, and neither do I. But I do know that you are being very rude to me.” As he made no reply, she went on: “You will, however, at least give me credit for knowing how to keep men at a distance, though I can’t hinder them from looking at me.—And, for your own comfort, remember in future that I’m not an inexperienced child. There’s nothing I don’t know.”

“You needn’t throw that up at me.”

“—I at YOU?” she laughed hotly. “That’s surely reversing the order of things, isn’t it? It ought to be the other way about.”

“Unfortunately it isn’t.” The look he gave her was made up of mingled anger and entreaty; but as she took no notice of it, he turned away, and going to the window, leaned his forehead against the glass. What affected him so disagreeably was not the incident of the man following her, but her light way of regarding it. And as the knowledge of this came home to him, he was impelled to go on speaking. “It’s a trifle to make a fuss about, I know,” he said. “And I shouldn’t give it a second thought, if I could ONLY feel, Louise, that you looked at it as I do . . . and felt about it as I do. You seem so indifferent to what it really means—it’s almost as if you enjoyed it. Other women are different. They resent such a thing instinctively. While you don’t even take offence. And men feel that in you, somehow. That’s what makes them look at you and follow you about. That’s what attracts them and always has done—far too easily.”

“You among the rest!”

“For God’s sake, hold your tongue! You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Oh, I know well enough.” She put her hair back from her forehead, and passed her handkerchief over her lips. “Instead of lecturing me in this way, you might be grateful, I think, that I didn’t accept the man’s offer and go somewhere to supper with him. It’s dull enough here. You don’t make things very gay for me. To-day, altogether, you are treating me as if I were a criminal.”

He did not answer; the words “You among the rest!” went on sounding in his ears. Yes, there was truth in them, a horrible truth. Who was he to sit in judgment?—either on her, or on those others who yielded to the attraction that went out from her. Had not he himself been in love with her before he even knew her name. Had he then accused her?—laid the blame at her door?

She caught a moth that was fluttering round the lamp, and carried it to the window. When, a moment later, he turned and gave her another unhappy look, she felt a kind of pity for him, forced as he was, by his nature, to work himself into unhappiness over such a trivial matter.

“Don’t let us say unkind things to each other,” she said slowly. “I’m sorry. If I had known it would worry you so much, I shouldn’t have said a word about it. That would have been easy.”

He felt her touch on his arm. As it grew warm and close, he, too, was filled with the wish to be at one with her again—to be lulled into security. He pressed her hand.

“Forgive me! To-day I’ve been bothered—pestered with black thoughts. Or else I shouldn’t go on like this.”

Now she was silent; both stared out into the night. And then a strange thing happened. He began to speak again, and words rose to his lips, of which, a moment before, he had had no idea, but which he now knew for absolute truth. He said: “I don’t want to excuse myself; I’m jealous, I admit it. And yet there IS an excuse for me, Louise. For saying such things to you, I mean. To-night I—Have you ever thought, dear, what a difference it would make to us, if you had . . . I mean if I knew . . . that you had never cared for anyone . . . if you had never belonged to anyone but me? That’s what I wish now more than anything else in the world. If I could just say to myself: no one but me has ever held her in his arms; and no one ever will. Do you think then, darling, I could speak as I have to-night?”

A moment back, he had had no thought of such a thing; now, here it was, expressed, over his lips—another of those strange, inlying truths, which were existent in him, and only waited for a certain moment to come to light. Strangest of all, perhaps, was the manner in which it impressed itself on him. In it seemed to be summed up his trouble of the afternoon, his suspense and irritation of the later hours. It was as if he had suddenly found a formula for them, and, as he stated it, he was dumbfounded by its far-reaching significance.

A church-clock pealed a single stroke.

“Oh, yes, perhaps,” said Louise, in a low voice. She could not rouse herself to a very keen interest in his feelings.

“No, not perhaps. Yes—a thousand times yes! Everything would be changed by it. Then I couldn’t torment you. And our love would have a certainty such as it can now never have.”

“But you knew, Maurice! I told you—everything! You said it didn’t matter.”

“And it doesn’t, and never shall. But to make it undone, I would cheerfully give years of my life. You’re a woman—you can’t understand these things—or know what we miss. You mine only—life wouldn’t be the same.”

For a moment she did not answer. Then the same toneless voice came out of the darkness at his side. “But I AM yours only—now. And it’s a foolish thing to wish for the impossible.”

VII.


It was, indeed, a preposterous thought to have at this date: no one knew that better than himself. And as long as he was with Louise, he kept it at bay; it was a fatuous thing even to allow himself to think, considering the past, and considering all he knew.

But next morning, as he sat with busy fingers, and a vacant mind, it returned. He thrust it angrily away, endeavouring to concentrate his attention on his music open before him. For a time, he believed he had succeeded. Then, the idea was unexpectedly present to him again, and this time more forcibly than before; it came like a sharp, swift stab of remembrance, and forced an exclamation over his lips. Discouraged, he let his hands drop from the keys of the piano; for now he knew that he would probably never be rid of it again. This was always the way with unpleasant thoughts and impressions: if they returned, after he had resolved to have done with them, they were henceforth part and parcel of himself, fixed ideas, against which his will was powerless.

In the hope of growing used to the haunting reflection, and to the unhappiness it implied, he thought it through to the end—this strange, unsought knowledge, which had lain unsuspected in him, and now became articulate. Once considered, however, it made many things clear. He could even account to himself now, for the blasphemous suggestions that had plagued him not twenty-four hours ago. If he had then not, all unconsciously, had the feeling that Louise had known too long and too well what love was, to be willing to live without it, such thoughts as those would never have risen in him.

In vain he asked himself, why he should only now understand these things. He could find no answer. Throughout the time he had known Louise, he had been better acquainted with her mode of life than anyone else: her past had lain open to him; she had concealed nothing, had been what she called “brutally frank” with him. And he had protested, and honestly believed, that what had preceded their intimacy did not matter to him. Who could foresee that, on a certain day, an idea of this kind would break out in him—like a canker? But this query took him a step further. Was it not deluding himself to say break out? Had not this shadow lurked in their love from the very beginning? Had it not formed an invisible barrier between them? It was possible no, it was true; though he only recognised its truth at the present time. It had existed from the first: something which each of them, in turn, had felt, and vaguely tried to express. It had little or nothing to do with the fact that they had defied convention. That, regrettable though it might be, was beside the mark. The confounding truth was, that, in an emotional crisis of an intensity of the one they had come through, it was imperative to be able to say: our love is unparalleled, unique; or, at least: I am the only possible one; I am yours, you are mine, only. That had not been the case. What he had been forced to tell himself was, that he was not the first. And now he knew that, for some time past, he had been aware that he would always occupy the second place; she was forced to compare him with another, to his disadvantage. And he knew more. For the first time, he allowed his thoughts to rove, unchecked, over her previous life, and he was no longer astonished at the imperfections of the present. To him, the gradual unfolding of their love had been a wonderful revelation; to her, a repetition, and a paler and fainter one, of a tale she already knew by heart. And the knowledge of this awakened a fresh distrust in him. If she had loved that first time, as she had asserted, as he had seen with his own eyes that she did, desperately, abandonedly, how had it been possible for her to change front so quickly, to turn to him and love anew? Was such a thing credible? Was a woman’s nature capable of it? And had it not been this constant fear, lest he should never be able to efface the image of his predecessor, which, yesterday, had boldly stalked out as a dread that what had drawn her to him, had not been love at all?

But this mood passed. He himself cared too well to doubt, for long, that in her own way she really loved him. What, however, he was obliged to admit was, that what she felt could in no way be counted the equal of his love for her: that had possessed a kind of primeval freshness, which no repetition, however passionately fond, could achieve. And yet, in his mind, there was still room for doubt—eager, willing doubt. It was due to his ignorance. He became aware of this, and, while brooding over these things, he was overmanned by the desire to learn, from her own lips, more about her past, to hear exactly what it had meant to her, in order that he might compare it with her present life, and with her feelings for him. Who could say if, by doing this, he might not drive away what was perhaps a phantom of his own uneasy brain?

He resolved to make the endeavour. But he was careful not to let her suspect his intention. First of all, he was full of compunction for his bad temper of the night before; he was also slightly ashamed of what he was going to do; and then, too, he knew that she would resent his prying. What he did must be done with tact. He had no wish to make her unhappy over it. And so, when he saw her again, he did his best to make her forget how disagreeable he had been.

But the desire to know remained, became a morbid curiosity. If this were satisfied, he believed it would make things easier for both of them. But he was infinitely cautious. Sometimes, without a word, he took her face between his hands and looked into her eyes, as if to read in them an answer to the questions he was afraid to put—looked right into the depth of her eyes, where the pupils swam in an oval of bluish white, overhung by lids which were finely creased in their folds, and netted with tiny veins. But he said not a word, and the eyes remained unfathomable, as they had always been.

Meanwhile, he did what he could to set his life on a solid basis again. But he was unable to arouse in himself a very vital interest in his work; some prompter-nerve in him seemed to have been injured. And often, he was overcome by the feeling that this perpetual preoccupation with music was only a trifling with existence, an excuse for not facing the facts of life. He would sometimes rather have been a labourer, worn out with physical toil. He was much alone, too; when he was not with Louise, he was given over to his own thoughts, and, day by day, fostered by the long, empty hours of practice, these moved more and more steadily in the one direction. The craving for a knowledge of the facts, for certainty in any form—this became a reason for, a plea in extenuation of, what he felt escaping him.

Louise did not help him; she assented to what he did without comment, half sorry for him in what seemed to her his wilful blindness, half disdainful. But she, too, made a discovery in these tame, flat days, and this was, that it was one thing to say to herself: it is over and done with, and another to make the assertion a fact. Energy for the effort was lacking in her; for the short, sharp stroke, which with her meant action, was invariably born of intense happiness or unhappiness. Now, as the days went by, she asked herself why she should do it. It was so much easier to let things slide, until something happened of itself, either to make the break, or to fill up the still greater emptiness in her life which a break would cause. And if he were content with what she could give him, well and good; she made no attempt to deceive him. And it seemed to her that he was content, though in a somewhat preoccupied way. But a little later, she acknowledged to herself that this was not the whole truth. There was habit to fight against—habit which could still give her hours of self-forgetfulness—and one could not forgo, all at once, and under no pressing necessity to do so, this means of escape from the cheerlessness of life.

But not for long did matters remain at this negative stage. Whereas, until now, the touch of her lips had been sufficient to chase away the shadows, the moment came, when, as he held her in his arms, Maurice was paralysed by the abrupt remembrance: she has known all this before. How was it then? To what degree is she mine, was she his? What fine, ultimate shade of feeling is she keeping back from me?—His ardour was damped; and as Louise also became aware of his sudden coolness, their hands sank apart, and had no strength to join anew.

Thus far, he had gone about his probings with skill, questioning her in a roundabout way, trying to learn by means of inference. But after this, he let himself go, and put a barefaced question. The subject once broached, there was no further need of concealment, and he flung tact and prudence to the winds. He could not forget—he was goaded on by—the look she had given him, as the ominous words crossed his lips: it made him conscious once more of the unapproachable nature of that first love of hers. He grew reckless; and while he had hitherto only sought to surprise her and entrap her, he now began to try to worm things out of her, all the time spying on her looks and words, ready to take advantage of the least slip on her part.

At first, before she understood what he was aiming at, Louise had been as frank as usual with him—that somewhat barbarous frankness, which took small note of the recipient’s feelings. But after he had put a direct question, and followed it up with others, of which she too clearly saw the drift, she drew back, as though she were afraid of him. It was not alone the error of taste he committed, in delving in matters which he had sworn should never concern him; it was his manner of doing it that was so distasteful to her—his hints and inuendoes. She grew very white and still, and looked at him with eyes in which a nascent dislike was visible.

He saw it; but it was now too late. Day by day, his preoccupation with the man who had preceded him increased. The thought that continued to harass him was: if she had never known the other, all would now be different. With jealousy, his state of mind had only as yet, in common, a devouring curiosity and a morbid imagination, which allowed him to picture the two of them in situations he would once have blushed to think of. For the one thing that now mattered to him, what he would have given his life to know, and would probably never know, was concerned with the ultimate ratification of love. What had she had for the other that she could not give him?—that she wilfully refrained from giving him? For that she did this, and always had refused him part of herself, was now as plain to him as if it had been branded on her flesh. And the knowledge undermined their lives. If she was gentle and kind, he read into her words pity that she could give him no more; if she were cold and evasive, she was remembering, comparing; if she returned his kisses with her former warmth—well, the thoughts which in this case seized him were the most murderous of all.

His mental activity ground him down. But it was not all unhappiness; the beloved eyes and hands, the wilful hair, and pale, sweet mouth, could still stir him; and there came hours of wishless well-being, when his tired brain found rest. As the days went by, however, these grew rarer; it also seemed to him that he paid dearly for them, by being afterwards more miserable, by suffering in a more active way.

At times, he knew, he was anything but a pleasant companion. But he was losing the mastery over himself, and often a trifle was sufficient to start him off afresh on the dreary theme. Once, in a fit of hopelessness, he made her what amounted to reproaches for her past.

“But you knew!—everythinging!—I told you all,” Louise expostulated, and there were tears in her eyes.

“I know you did. But Louise”—he hesitated, half contrite in advance, for what he was going to say—“it might have been better if you hadn’t told me—everything, I mean. Yes, I believe it’s better not to know.”

She did not reply, as she might have done, that she had forewarned him, afraid of this. She looked away, so that she should not be obliged to see him.

Another day, when they were walking in the ROSENTAL, she made him extremely unhappy by disagreeing with him.

“If one could just take a sponge and wipe the past out, like figures from a slate!” he said moodily.

But, jaded by his persistency, Louise would not admit it. “We should have nothing to remember.”

“That’s just it.”

“But it belongs to us!” She was roused to protest by the under-meaning in his words. “It’s as much a part of ourselves as our thoughts are—or our hands.”

“One is glad to forget. You would be, Louise? You wouldn’t care if your past were gone? Say you wouldn’t.”

But she only threw him a dark side-glance. As, however, he would not rest content, she flung out her hands with an impatient gesture. “How CAN you torment yourself so! If you insist on knowing, well, then, I wouldn’t part with an hour of what’s gone—not an hour! And you know it.”

She caught at a few vivid leaves that had remained hanging on a bare branch, and carried them with her.

He took one she held out to him, looked at it without seeing it, and threw it away. “Tell me, just this once, something about your life before I knew you. Were you very happy?—or were you unhappy? Do you know, I once heard you say you had never known a moment’s happiness?—yes, one summer night long ago, over in the NONNE. How I hoped then it was true! But I don’t know. You’ve never told me anything—of all there must be to tell.”

“What you may have chanced to hear, by eavesdropping, doesn’t concern me now,” Louise answered coldly. And then she shut her lips, and would say no more. She was wiser than she had been a week ago: she refused to hand her past over to him in order that he might smirch it with his thoughts.

But she could not understand him—understand the motives that made him want to unearth the past. If this were jealousy, it was a kind she did not know—a bloodless, bodiless kind, of which she had had no experience.

But it was not jealousy; it was only a craving for certainty in any guise, and the more surely Maurice felt that he would never gain it, the more tenaciously he strove. For certainty, that feeling of utter reliance in the loved one, which sets the heart at rest and leaves the mind free for the affairs of life, was what Louise had never given him; he had always been obliged to fall back on supposition with regard to her, equally at the height of their passion, and in that first and stretch of time, when it was forbidden him to touch her hand. The real truth, the last-reaching truth about her, it would not be his to know. Soul would never be absorbed in soul; not the most passionate embraces could bridge the gulf; to their last kiss, they would remain separate beings, lonely and alone.

As this went on, he came to hate the vapidities of the concerto in G major. Mentally to be stretched on a kind of rack, and, at the same time, to be forced to reiterate the empty rhetoric of this music! From this time forward, he could not hear the name of Mendelssohn without a shiver of repugnance. How he wished now, that he had been content with the bare sincerity of Beethoven, who at least said no note more than he had to say.

One day, towards the end of November, he was working with even greater distaste than usual. Finally, in exasperation, he flapped the music to, shut the piano, and went out. A stroll along the muddy little railed-in river brought him to the PLEISSENBURG, and from there he crossed the KONIGSPLATZ to the BRUDERSTRASSE. He had not come out with the intention of going to Louise, but, although it was barely four o’clock, the afternoon was drawing in; an interminable evening had to be got through. He had been walking at haphazard, and without relish; now his pace grew brisker. Having reached the house, he sprang nimbly up the. stairs, and was about to insert his key in the little door in the wall, when he was arrested by a muffled sound of voices. Louise was talking to some one, and, at the noise he made outside, she raised her voice—purposely, no doubt. He could not hear what was being said, but the second voice was a man’s. For a minute he stood, with his key suspended, straining his cars; then, afraid of being caught, he went downstairs again, where he hung about, between stair and street-door, in order that anyone who came down would be forced to pass him. At the end of five minutes, however, his patience was spent: he remembered, too, that the person might be as likely to go up as down. He mounted the stairs again, rang the bell, and had himself admitted by the landlady.

He thought she looked significantly at him as, with her usual pantomime of winks and signs, she whispered to him that a gentleman was with Fraulein—EIN SCHONER JUNGER MANN! Maurice pushed her aside, and opened the sitting-room door. Two heads turned at his entrance.

On the sofa, beside Louise, sat Herries, the ruddy little student of medicine with whom she had danced so often at the ball. He sat there, smiling and dapper, balancing his hard round hat on his knee, and holding gloves in his hand.

Louise looked the more untidy by contrast: as usual, her hair was half uncoiled. Maurice saw this in a flash, saw also the look of annoyance that crossed her face at his unceremonious entry. She raised astonished eyebrows. Then, however, she shook hands with him.

“I think you know Mr. Herries.”

Maurice bowed stiffly across the table; Herries replied in kind, without discommoding himself.

“How d’ye do? I believe we’ve met,” he said carelessly.

As Maurice made no rejoinder, but remained standing in an uncompromising attitude, Herries turned to Louise again, and went on with what he had been saying. He was talking of England.

“I went back to Oxford after that,” he continued. “I’ve diggings there, don’t you know? An old chum of mine’s a fellow of Magdalen. I was just in time for eights’ week. A magnificent walk-over for our fellows. Ever seen the race? No? Oh, I say, that’s too bad. You must come over for it, next year.”

“Mr. Herries only returned from England a few days ago,” explained Louise, and again raised warning brows. “Do sit down. There’s a chair.”

“Yes. I was over for the whole summer. Didn’t work here at all, in fact,” added Herries, once more letting his bright eyes snapshot the young man, who, on sitting down, laid his shabby felt hat in the middle of the table.

“But now you intend to stay, I think you said?” Louise threw in at random, after they had waited for Maurice to fill up the pause.

“Yes, for the winter semester, anyhow. And I’ve got to tumble to, with a vengeance. But I mean to have a good time all the same. Even though it’s only Leipzig, one can have a jolly enough time.”

Again there was silence. Louise flushed. “I suppose you’re hard at work already?”

“Yes. Got started yesterday. Frogs, don’t you know?—the effect of a rare poison on frogs.”

This trivial exchange of words stung Maurice. Herries’s manner seemed to him intolerably familiar, lacking in respect; and he kept telling himself, as he listened, that, having returned frorn England, the fellow’s first thought had been of her. He had not opened his lips since entering; he sat staring at them, forgetful of good manners; and, after a little, both began to feel ill at ease. Their eyes met for a moment in this sensation, and Herries cleared his throat.

“What did you do with yourself in summer?” he queried, and could not restrain a smile, at the fashion in which the other fellow was giving himself away. “You weren’t in England at all, I think you said? We hoped we might meet there, don’t you remember? Too bad that I had to go off without saying good-bye.”

“No, I changed my mind and stayed here. But I shouldn’t do it again. It was so hot.”

“Must have been simply beastly.”

Maurice jerked his arm; a vase which was standing at his elbow upset, and the water trickled to the floor. Neither offered to help him; he had to stoop and mop it up with his handkerchief.

For a few moments longer, the conversation was eked out. Then Herries rose. With her hand in his, he said earnestly: “Now you must be merciful and relent. I shan’t give up hope. Any time in the next fortnight is time enough, remember. ‘Pon my word, I’ve dreamt of those waltzes of ours ever since. And the floor at the PRUSSE is still better, don’t you know? You won’t have the heart not to come.”

From under her lids, Louise shot a rapid glance at Maurice. He, too, had risen; he was standing stiff, pale, and solemn, visibly waiting only till Herries had gone, to make himself disagreeable. She smiled.

“Don’t ask me to give an answer to-day. I’ll let you know—will that do? A fortnight is such a long time. And then you’ve forgotten the chief thing. I must see if I have anything to wear.”

“Oh, I say! . . . if that’s all! Don’t let that bother you. That black thing you had on last time was ripping—awfully jolly, don’t you know?”

Louise laughed. “Well, perhaps,” she said, as she opened the door.

“Good business!” responded Herries.

He nodded in Maurice’s direction, and they went out of the room together. Maurice heard their voices in laughing rejoinder, heard them take leave of each other at the halldoor. After that there was a pause. Louise lingered, before returning, to open a letter that was lying on the hall-table; she also spoke to Fraulein Grunhut. When she did come back, all trace of animation had gone from her face. She busied herself at once with the flowers he had disarranged, and this done, ordered her hair before the hanging glass. Maurice followed her movements with a sarcastic smile.

Suddenly she turned and confronted him.

“Maurice! . . . for Heaven’s sake, don’t glare at me like that! If you’ve anything to say, please say it, and be done with it.”

“You know well enough what I have to say.” His voice was husky.

“Indeed, I don’t.”

“Well you ought to.”

“Ought to?—No: there’s a limit to everything! Take your hat off that table!—What did you mean by bursting into the room when you heard some one was here? And, as if that weren’t enough—to let everybody see how much at home you are—your behaviour—your unbearable want of manners...” She stopped, and pressed her handkerchief to her lips.

“I believed you didn’t care what people thought,” he threw in, morosely defiant.

“That’s a poor excuse for your rudeness.”

“Well, at least tell me what that fool wanted here.”

“Have you no ears? Couldn’t you hear that he has just come back from England, and is calling on his friends?”

“Do you expect me to believe that?”

“Maurice!”

“Oh, he has always been after you—since that night. It’s only because he wasn’t here long enough . . . and his manner shows what he thinks of you . . . and what he means.”

“What do YOU mean? Do you wish to say it’s my doing that he came here to-day?—Don’t you believe me?” she demanded, as he did not answer.

“And you in that half-dressed condition!”

“Could I dress before him? How abominable you are!”

He tried to explain. “Yes. Because . . . I hate the sight of the fellow.—You didn’t know he was coming, did you, or you wouldn’t have seen him.?”

“Know he was coming!” She wrenched her hands away. “Oh! . . .”

“Say you didn’t!”

“Maurice!—Be jealous, if you must! But surely, surely you don’t believe——”

“Oh, don’t ask me what I believe. I only know I won’t have that man hanging about. It was by a mere chance to-day that I came round earlier; he might have been here for hours, without my suspecting it. Who knows if you would have told me either?—Would you have told me, Louise?”

“Oh, how can you be like this! What is the matter with you?”

He put his arms round her, with the old cry. “I can’t bear you even to look at another man. For he’s in love with you, and has been, ever since you made him crazy by dancing with him as you did.”

With his hands on her shoulders, he rested his face on her hair. “Promise me you won’t see him again.”

Wearily, Louise disengaged herself. “Oh there’s always something fresh to promise. I’m tired of it—of being hedged in, and watched, and never trusted.”

“Tired of me, you mean.”

She looked bitterly at him. “There you are again?”

“Just this once—to set my mind at rest. Just this once, Louise!—darling!”

But she was silent.

“Then you’ll let him come here again?”

“How do I know?—But if I promised what you ask, I should not be able to go with him to the HOTEL DE PRUSSE on the fifteenth.”

“You mean to go to that dance?”

“Why not? Would there be any harm in my going?”

“Louise!”

“Maurice!” She mocked his tone, and laughed. “Oh, go at once,” she broke out the next moment, “and order Grunhut never to let another visitor inside the door. Make me promise never to cross the threshold alone—never to speak to another mortal but yourself! Cut off every pleasure and every chance of pleasure I have; and then you may be, but only may be, content.”

“You’re trying how far you can go with me.”

“Do you want me to tell you again that dancing is one of the things I love best? Not six months ago you knew and helped me to it yourself.”

“Yes, THEN,” he answered. “Then I could refuse you nothing.”

She laughed in an unfriendly way. He pressed her hand to his forehead. “You won’t be so cruel, I know.”

“You know more than I do.”

“Do you realise what it means if you go?” In fancy, he was present, and saw her passed from one pair of arms to another.

“I realise nothing—but that I am very unhappy.”

“Have I no influence over you any more—none at all?”

“Can’t you come, too, then?—if you are afraid to let me out of your sight?”

“I? To see you——” He broke off with wrathful abruptness. “Thanks, I would rather be shot.” But at the mingled anger and blankness of her face, he coloured. “Louise, put an end to all this. Marry me—now, at once!”

“Marry you? I? No, thank you. We’re past that stage, I think.—Besides, are you so simple as to believe it would make any difference?”

“Oh, stop tormenting me. Come here!”—and he pulled her to him.

From this day forward, the direction of his thoughts was changed. The incident of Herries’s visit, her refusal to promise what he asked, and, above all, the matter of the coming ball, with regard to which he could not get certainty from her: these things seemed to open up nightmare depths, to which he could see no bottom. Compared with them, the vague fears which had hitherto troubled him were only shadows, and like shadows faded away. He no longer sought out superfine reasons for their lack of happiness. The past was dead and gone; he could not alter jot or tittle of what had happened; he could only make the best of it. And so he ceased to brood over it, and gave himself up to the present. The future was a black, unknown quantity, but the present was his own. And he would cling to it—for who knew what the future held in store for him? In these days, he began to suspect that it was not in the nature of things for her always to remain satisfied with him; and, ever more daring, the horrid question reared its head: who will come after me? Another blind attraction only needed to seize her, and what, then, would become of constancy and truth? If he had doubted her before, he was now suspicious from a different cause, and in quite a different way. The face of the trim little man who had sat beside her, and smiled at her, was persistently present to him. He did not question her further; but the poison worked the more surely in secret; he never for an instant forgot; and jealousy, now wide awake, had at last a definite object to lay hold of.

In his lucid moments, he knew that he was making her life a burden to her. What wonder if she did, ultimately, turn from him? But his evil moods were now beyond command. He began to suspect deceit in her actions as well as in what she said. The idea that this other, this smirking, wax-faced man, might somehow steal her from him, hung over him like a fog, obscuring his vision. It necessitated continued watchfulness on his part. And so he dogged her, mentally, and in fact until his own heart all but broke under the strain.

One afternoon they walked to Connewitz. It had rained heavily during the night, and the unpaved roads were inchdeep in mud. The sky was a level sheet of cloud, darker and more forbidding in the east.

Their direction was Maurice’s choice. Louise would have liked better to keep to the town: for, though the streets, too, were mud-bespattered, there would soon be lights, and the reflection of lights in damp pavements. She yielded, however, without even troubling to express her wish. But just because of the dirt and naked ugliness which met her, at every turn, she was voluble and excited; and an exaggerated hilarity seized her at trifles. Maurice, who had left the house in a more composed frame of mind than usual, gradually relapsed, at her want of restraint, into silence. He suffered under her looseness of tongue and laughter: her sallow, heavy-eyed face was ill-adapted to such moods; below her feverish animation there lurked, he was sure of it, a deadly melancholy. He had always been rendered uneasy by her spurts of gaiety. Now in addition, he asked himself: what has happened to make he. like this?

Feeling his hostility, Louise grew quieter, and soon she, too, was silent. Having gained his end, Maurice wished to atone for it, and slipping his arm through hers, he took her hand. For a few steps they walked on in this fashion. Then, he received one of those sudden impressions which flash on us from time to time, of having seen or done a certain thing before. For a moment, he could not verify it; then he knew. just in this way, arm in arm, hand in hand, had she come towards him with Schilsky, that very first day. It was no doubt a habit of hers. Like this, too, she would, in all probability, walk with the one who came after. And the picture of Herries, in the place he now occupied, was photographed on his brain.

He withdrew his arm, as if hers had burnt him: his mind was off again on its old round. But she, too, had to suffer for it. As he stood back to let her pass before him, on a dry strip of the path, his eye caught a yellow rose she was wearing at her belt. Till now he had seen it without seeing it.

“Why are you wearing that rose?”

Louise looked down from him to the flower and back again.” Why?—you know I like to wear flowers.”

“Where did you get it?”

She foresaw what he was driving at, and did not reply.

“You were wearing a rose like that the first time I saw you. Do you remember?”

“How should I remember? It’s so long ago.”

“Where had you got that one from, then?”

She repeated the same words. “How should I know now?”

“But I know. It was from him—he had given it to you.”

She raised her shoulders. “Perhaps.”

“Perhaps? No. For certain.”

“Well, and if so—was there anything strange in that?”

They walked a few paces without speaking. Then he asked: “Who has given you this one?”

“Maurice!” There was a note of warning in her voice. He heard it in vain. “Give it to me, Louise.”

“No—let it be. It will wither soon enough where it is.”

“Please give it to me,” he urged, rendered the more determined by her refusal.

“I wish to keep it.”

“And I mean to have it.”

To avoid the threatening scene, she took the rose from her belt and gave it to him. He fingered it indecisively for a moment, then threw it over the bridge they were crossing, into the river. It struggled, filled with muddy water, and floated away.

In the next breath, however, he asked himself ruefully what he had gained by his action. She had given him the rose, and he had destroyed it; but he would never know how she had come by it, and what it had been to her.

He was incensed with himself and with her for the whole length of the SCHLEUSSIGER WEG. Then the inevitable regret for his hastiness followed. He took her limply hanging hand and pressed it. But there was no responsive pressure on her part. Louise looked away from him, beyond the woods, as far as she could see, in the vain hope of there discovering some means of escape.

VIII.


In descending one evening the broad stair of the Gewandhaus, and forced, by reason of the crowd, to pause on every step, Madeleine overheard the talk of two men behind her, one of whom, it seemed, had all the gossip of the place at his fingertips. From what she caught up greedily, as soon as Maurice’s name was mentioned, she learnt a surprising piece of news. “A cat and dog life,” was the phrase used by the speaker. As she afterwards picked her way through snow and slush, Madeleine confessed to herself that it was impossible to feel regret at what she had heard. Perhaps, after all, things would come right of themselves. In order to recover from his infatuation, to learn what Louise really was, it had only been necessary for Maurice to be constantly at her side.—Was it not Goethe who said that the way to cure a bad habit was to indulge it?

But a few days afterwards, her satisfaction was damped. Late one afternoon she had entered Seyffert’s Cafe, to drink a cup of chocolate. At a table parallel with the one she chose, two fellow-students were playing draughts. Madeleine had only been there for a few minutes, when their talk, which went on unrestrainedly between the moves of the game, leapt, with a witticism, to the unlucky pair in whom she was interested. To her astonishment, she now heard Louise’s name, coupled with that of another man.

“Well, I never!” said the second of the two behind her. “I say it’s your move.—That’s rough on Guest, isn’t it?”

Madeleine turned in her chair and faced the man who had spoken.

“Excuse me, who is Herries?” she asked without ceremony.

In her own room that evening, she pondered long. It was one thing for the two to drift naturally apart; another for Maurice to see himself superseded. If this were true, jealousy, and nothing else, would be at the root of their disunion. Madeleine felt very unwilling to mix herself up in the affair: it would be like plunging two clean hands into dirty water. But then, you never could tell how a man would act in a case like this: the odds were ten to one he did something foolish.

And so she wrote to Maurice, making her summons imperative. This failing, she tried to waylay him going to or from his classes; but the only satisfaction she gained, was the knowledge of his irregularity: during the week she waited she did not once come face to face with him. Next, she looked round her for some common friend, and found that he had not an intimate left in all Leipzig. She wrote again, still more plainly, and again he ignored her letter.

One Saturday afternoon, she was walking along the crowded streets of the inner town. She had been to the MOTETTE, in the THOMASKIRCHE, and was now on her way home, carrying music from the library. The snow had melted to mud, and sleet was falling. Madeleine had no umbrella; the collar of her cloak was turned up round her ears, and her small felt hat covered her head like an extinguisher.

On entering the PETERSTRASSE, she was jostled together with Dove. It was impossible to beat a retreat.

Dove seldom hurried. On this day, as on any other, he walked with a somewhat pompous emphasis through slush and stinging rain, holding his umbrella straight aloft over him, as he might have carried a banner. He was shocked to find Madeleine without one, at once took her under his, and loaded himself with her music—all with that air of matter-of-course-ness, which invariably made her keen to decline his aid. Dove was radiant; he prospered as do only the happy few; and his satisfaction with himself, and with the world in general, was somehow expressed even through the medium of his long neck and gently sloping shoulders. He greeted Madeleine with an exaggerated pleasure, accompanying his words by the slow smile which sometimes set her wondering if he were not, perhaps, being inwardly satirical at the expense of other people, fooling them by means of his own foolishness. But, however this might be, the cynical feelings that took her in his presence, mounted once more; she knew his symptoms, and an excess of content was just as distasteful to her as gluttony, or wine-bibbing, or any other self-indulgence.

However, she checked the desire to snub him—to snub until she had succeeded in raising that impossible ire, which, she believed, MUST lurk somewhere in Dove—for, as she plodded along at his side, sheltered from the brunt of the weather, it occurred to her that here was some one whom she might tap on the subject of Maurice. She opened fire by congratulating her companion on his recent performance in an ABENDUNTERHALTUNG; at the time, even she had been forced to admit it a creditable piece of work. Dove, who privately considered it epochmaking, was outwardly very modest. He could not refrain from letting fall that the old director had afterwards thanked him in person; but, in the next breath, he pointed out a slip he had made in a particular passage of the sonata. It had not, it was true, been observed, he believed, by anyone except Schwarz and himself; still it had caused him considerable annoyance; and he now related how, as far as he could judge, it had come about.

The current inquiries concerning the PRUFUNGEN then passed between them.

“Poor old Schwarz!” said Madeleine. “We shall be few enough, this year. Tell me, what of Heinz? I haven’t seen him for an age.”

“I regret to say that Krafft is making an uncommon donkey of himself,” said Dove. “He had another shocking row with Schwarz last week.”

“Tch, tch, tch!” said Madeleine. “Heinz is a freak.—And Maurice Guest, what about him?”

“I haven’t seen him lately.”

“Indeed? How is that?”

“I’m not in the same class with him now. His hour has been changed.”

“Has it indeed?” said Madeleine thoughtfully. This accounted for her having been unable to meet Maurice. “What’s he playing, do you know?”

“The G major Mendelssohn, I understand;” and Dove looked at her out of the corner of his eye.

“How’s he getting on with it?” she queried afresh, in the same indifferent tone.

“I really couldn’t say. As I mentioned, he’s in another class.”

“Oh, but you must have heard!” said Madeleine. “It’s no use putting me off,” she added, with determination. “I want to find out about Mauzice.”

“And I fear I can’t assist you. All I HAVE chanced to hear—mere rumour, of course—is that . . . well, if Guest doesn’t pull himself together, he won’t play at all.—By the way, what did you think of James the other night, in the LISZTVEREIN?”

“Oh, that his octaves were marvellous, of course!” said Madeleine tartly. “But I warn you,” she continued, “it’s of no use changing the subject, or pretending you don’t know. I intend to speak of Maurice.”

“Then it must be to some one else, Miss Madeleine, not to me.”—Dove could never be induced to call her Madeleine, as her other friends did.

“And why, pray, are you to be the exception?”

“Because, as I’ve already mentioned, I don’t see any more of Guest. He mixes in a different set now.—And as for me, well, my thoughts are occupied with, I trust, more profitable things.”

“What? You have thoughts, too?”

“I hope you don’t claim a monopoly of them?” said Dove, and smiled in his imperturbable way. As, however, Madeleine persisted, he grew grave. “It’s not a pleasant subject. I should really rather not discuss it, Miss Madeleine.”

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, don’t let us play the prudish or sentimental!” cried Madeleine, in a burst of impatience. “Of course, it isn’t pleasant. Do you think I should “—“bother with you,” was on her tongue. She checked herself, and subtituted—“trouble you about it, if it were? But Maurice was once a friend of ours—you don’t deny it, I hope?” she threw in challengingly; for Dove muttered something to himself. “And I want to get at the truth about him. I’m sorrier than I can say, to hear, on all sides, what a fool he’s making of himself.”

Dove was suavely silent.

“Of course,” continued Madeleine with a sarcastic inflection—“of course, I can’t expect you to see it as I do. Men look at these things differently, I know. Possibly if I were a man, I, too, should stand by, with my hands in my pockets, and watch a friend butt his head against a stone wall—thinking it, indeed, rather good fun.”

She had touched Dove on a tender spot. “I can assure you, Miss Madeleine,” he said impressively, as they picked their steps across a dirty road—“I can assure you, you are mistaken. I think just as strictly in matters of this kind as you yourself.—But as to interfering in Guest’s . . . in his private affairs, well, frankly, I shouldn’t care to try it. He was always a curiously reserved fellow.”

“Reserved—obstinate-pig-headed!—call it what you like,” said Madeleine. “But don’t imagine I’m asking you to interfere. I only want you to tell me, briefly and simply, what you know about him. And to make it easier for you, I’ll begin by telling you what I know.—It’s an old story, isn’t it, that Maurice once supplanted some one else in a certain young woman’s favour? Well, now I hear that he, in turn, is to be laid on the shelf.—Is that true, or isn’t it?”

“Really, Miss Madeleine!—that’s a very blunt way of putting it,” said Dove uncomfortably.

“Oh, when a friend’s at stake, I can’t hum and haw,” said Madeleine, who could never keep her temper with Dove for long.” I call a spade a spade, and rejoice to do it. What I ask you to tell me is, whether I’ve been correctly informed or not. Have you, too, heard Louise Dufrayer’s name coupled with that of a man called Herries?”

But Dove was stubborn. “As far as I’m concerned, Miss Madeleine, the truth is, I’ve hardly exchanged a word with Guest since spring. Into his . . . friendship with Miss Dufrayer, I have never felt it my business to inquire. I believe—from hearsay—that he is much changed. And I feel convinced his PRUFUNG will be poor. Indeed, I’m not sure that he should not be warned off it altogether.”

“Could that not be laid before him?”

“I should not care to undertake it.”

There was nothing to be done with Dove; Madeleine felt that she was wasting her breath; and they walked across the broad centre of the ROSSPLATZ in silence.

“Do you never think,” she said, after a time, “how it would simplify life, if we were able to get above it for a bit, and see things without prejudice?—Here’s a case now, where a little real fellowship and sympathy might work wonders. But no!—no interference!—that’s the chief and only consideration!”

It had stopped raining. Dove let down his umbrella, and carried it stiffly, at some distance from him, by reason of its dampness. “Believe me, Miss Madeleine,” he said, as he emerged from beneath it. “Believe me, I make all allowance for your feelings, which do you credit. A woman’s way of looking at these things is, thank God, humaner than ours. But it’s a man’s duty not to let his feelings run away with him. I agree with you, that it’s a shocking affair. But Guest went into it with his eyes open. And that he could do so—but there was always something a little . . . a little peculiar about Guest.”

“I suppose there was. One can only be thankful, I suppose, that he’s more or less of an exception—among his own countrymen, I mean, of course. Englishmen are not, as a rule, given to that kind of thing.”

“Thank God they’re not!” said Dove with emotion.

“We’ll, our ways part here,” said Madeleine, and halted. As she took her music from him, she asked: “By the way, when shall we be at liberty to congratulate you?”

It was not at all “by the way” to Dove. However, he only smiled; for he had grown wiser, and no longer wore his heart on his coat-sleeve. “You shall be one of the first to hear, Miss Madeleine, when the news is made public.”

“Thanks greatly. Good-bye.—Oh, no, stop a moment!” cried Madeleine. It was more than she could bear to see him turn away thus, beaming with self-content. “Stop a moment. You won’t mind my telling you, I’m sure, that I’ve been disappointed with you this afternoon. For I’ve always thought of you as a saviour in the hour of need, don’t you know? One does indulge in these fancy pictures of one’s friends—a strong man, helping with tact and example. And here you go, toppling my picture over, without the least remorse.—Well, you know your own business best, I suppose, but it’s unkind of you, all the same, to destroy an illusion. One has few enough of them in this world.—Ta-ta!”

She laughed satirically, and turned on her heel, regardless of the effect of her words.

But Dove was not offended; on the contrary, he felt rather flattered. He did not, of course, care in the least about what Madeleine called her illusions; but the mental portrait she had drawn of him corresponded exactly to that attitude in which he was fondest of contemplating himself. For it could honestly be said that, hitherto, no one had ever applied to him for aid in vain: he was always ready, both with his time and with good advice. And the idea that, in the present instance, he was being untrue to himself, in other words, that he was letting an opportunity slip, ended by upsetting him altogether.

Until now, he had not regarded Maurice and Maurice’s doings from this point of view. By nature, Dove was opposed to excess of any kind; his was a clean, strong mind, which caused him instinctively to draw back from everything, in morals as in art, that passed a certain limit. Nothing on earth would have persuaded him to discuss his quondam friend’s backsliding with Madeleine Wade; he was impregnated with the belief that such matters were unfit for virtuous women’s ears, and he applied his conviction indiscriminaetely. Now, however, the notion of Maurice as a Poor erring sheep, waiting, as it were, to be saved—this idea was of undeniable attractiveness to Dove, and the more he revolved it, the more convinced he grew of its truth.

But he had reasons for hesitating. Having valiantly overcome his own disappointments, first in the case of Ephie, then of pretty Susie, he now, in his third suit, was on the brink of success. The object of his present attachment was a Scotch lady, no longer in her first youth, and several years older than himself but of striking appearance, vivacious manners, and, if report spoke true, considerable fortune. Her appearance in Leipzig was due to the sudden burst of energy which often inspires a woman of the Scotch nation when she feels her youth escaping her. Miss MacCallum, who was abroad nominally to acquire the language, was accompanied by her aged father and mother; and it was with these two old people that it be hoved Dove to ingratiate himself; for, according to the patriarchal habits of their race, the former still guided and determined their daughter’s mode of life, as though she were thirteen instead of thirty. Dove was obliged to be of the utmost circumspection in his behaviour; for the old couple, uprooted violently from their native soil, lived in a mild but constant horror at the iniquity of foreign ways. They held the pro fession of music to be an unworthy one, and threw up their hands in dismay at the number of young people here complacently devoting themselves to such a frivolous object. It was necessary for Dove to prove to them that a student of music might yet be a man of untarnished principles and blame less honour. And he did not find the task a hard one; the whole bent of his mind was towards sobriety. He frequented the American church with his new friends on Sunday after noon; gave up skating on that day; went with the old gentleman to Motets and Passions; and eschewed the opera.

But now, his ambition had been insidiously roused, and day by day it grew stronger. If only the affair with Maurice had not been of so unsavoury a nature! Did he, Dove, become seriously involved, it might be difficult to prove to judges so severe as his future parents-in-law, that he had acted out of pure goodness of heart. For, that he would be embroiled, in other words, that he would have success in his mission, there was no manner of doubt in his mind—a conviction he shared with the generality of mankind: that it is only necessary for an offender’s eyes to be opened to the enormity of his wrongdoing, for him to be reasonable and to renounce it.

While Dove hesitated thus, torn between his reputation on the one hand, his missionary zeal on the other; while he hesitated, an incident occurred, which acted as a kind of moral fingerpost. In the piano-class, one day, just as Dove was about to leave the room, Schwarz asked him if he were not a friend of Herr Guest’s. The latter had been absent now from two lessons in succession. Was he ill? Did no one know what had happened to him? Dove made light of the friendship, but volunteered his services, and was bidden to make inquiries.

He went that afternoon.

Frau Krause looked a little gruffer than of old; and left him to find his own way to Maurice’s room. In accordance with the new state of things, Dove knocked ceremoniously at the door. While his knuckles still touched the wood, it was flung open, and he stood face to face with Maurice. For a moment the latter did not seem to recognise his visitor; he had evidently been expecting some one else.

Then he repaired his tardiness, ceased to hold the door, and Dove entered, apologising for his intrusion.

“Just a moment. I won’t detain you. As you were absent from the class all last week, Schwarz asked to-day if you were ill, and I said I would step round and see.”

“Very good of you, I’m sure. Sit down,” said Maurice. His face changed as he spoke; a look of relief and, at the same time, of disappointment flitted across it.

“Thanks. If I am not disturbing you,” answered Dove. As he said these words, he threw a glance, the significance of which might have been grasped by a babe, at the piano. It had plainly not been opened that day.

Maurice understood. “No, I was not practising,” he said. “But I have to go out shortly,” and he looked at his watch.

“Quite so. Very good. I won’t detain you,” repeated Dove, and sat down on the proffered chair. “But not practising? My dear fellow, how is that? Are you so far forward already that it isn’t necessary? Or is it a fact that you are not feeling up to the mark?”

“Oh, I’m all right. I get my work over in the morning.”

Now he, too, sat down, at the opposite side of the table. Clearing his throat, Dove gazed at the sinner before him. He began to see that his errand was not going to be an easy one; where no hint was taken, it was difficult to insert even the thinnest edge of the wedge. He resolved to use finesse; and, for several of the precious moments at his disposal, he talked, as if at random, of other things.

Maurice tapped the table. He kept his eyes fixed on Dove’s face, as though he were drinking in his companion’s solemn utterances. In reality, whole minutes passed without his knowing what was said. At Dove’s knock, he had been certain that a message had come from Louise—at last. This was the night of the ball; and still she had given him no promise that she would not go. They had parted, the evening before, after a bitter quarrel; and he had left her, vowing that he would not return till she sent for him. He had waited the whole day, in vain, for a sign. What was Dove with his pompous twaddle to him? Every slight sound on the stairs or in the passage meant more. He was listening, listening, without cessation.

When he came back to himself, he heard Dove droning on, like a machine that has been wound up and cannot stop.

“Now, I hope you won’t mind my saying so,” were the next words that pierced his brain. “You must not be offended at my telling you; but you are hardly fulfilling the expectations we, your friends, you know, had formed of you. My dear fellow, you really must pull yourself together, or February will find you still unprepared.”

Maurice went a shade paler; he was clear, now, as to the object of Dove’s visit. But he answered in an off-hand way. “Oh, there’s time enough yet.”

“No. That’s a mistaken point of view, if I may say so,” replied Dove in his blandest manner. “Time requires to be taken by the forelock, you know.”

“Does it?” Maurice allowed the smile that was expected of him to cross his face.

“Most emphatically—And we fellow-students of yours are not the only people who have noticed a certain—what shall I say?—a certain abatement of energy on your part. Schwarz sees it, too—or I am much mistaken.”

“What?—he, too?” said Maurice, and pretended a mild surprise. For some seconds now he had been mentally debating with himself whether he should not, there and then, show Dove the door. He decided against it. A “Damn your interference!” meant plain-speaking, on both sides; it meant a bandying of words; and more expenditure of strength than he had to spare for Dove. Once more he drew out and consulted his watch.

“Unfortunately, yes,” said Dove, ignoring the hint. “I assume it, from something he let drop this afternoon. Now, you know, your Mendelssohn ought to have been a brilliant piece of work—yes, the expression is not too strong. And it still must be. My dear Guest, what I came to say to you to-day—one, at any rate, of the reasons that brought me—was, that you must not allow your interest in what you are doing to flag at the eleventh hour.”

Maurice laughed. “Oh, certainly not! Most awfully good of you to trouble.”

“No trouble at all,” Dove assured him. He flicked some dust from his trouser-knee before he spoke again. “I . . . er . . . that is, I had some talk the other day with Miss Wade.”

“Indeed!” replied Maurice, and was now able accurately to gauge the motor origin of Dove’s appearance. “How is she? How is Madeleine?”

“She was speaking of you, Guest. She would, I think, like to see you.”

“Yes. I’ve rather neglected her lately, I’m afraid.—But when there’s so much to do, you know . . .”

“It’s a pity,” said Dove, passing over the last words, and nodding his head sagaciously. “She’s a staunch friend of yours, is Miss Madeleine. I think it wouldn’t be too much to say, she was feeling a little hurt at your neglect of her.”

“Really? I had no idea so many people took an interest in me.”

“That is just where you are mistaken,” said Dove warmly. “We all do. And for that very reason, I said to myself, I will be spokesman for the rest: I’ll go to him and tell him he must pull through, and do himself credit—and Schwarz, too. We are so few this year, you know.”

“Yes, poor old man! He has got badly left.”

“Yes. That was one reason. And then . . . but you assure me, don’t you, that you will not take what I am going to say amiss?”

“Not in the least. It’s awfully decent of you. But I’m sorry to say my time’s up. And every minute is precious just now—as you know yourself.”

He rose, and, for the third time, referred to his watch. After an ineffectual attempt to continue, Dove was also forced to rise, with the best part of his message unuttered. And Maurice hurried him, glum and crestfallen, to the door, for fear of the still worse tactlessness of which he might make himself guilty.

They groped in silence along the dark lobby. For the sake of parting with a friendly and neutral word, Maurice said, as he opened the door: “By the way, I hear we shall soon have to offer congratulations and good wishes.”

To his surprise, Dove, who had already crossed the threshold, looked blank, and drew himself up.

“Indeed?” he said, and the tone was, for him, quite short. “I. . the fact is . . . I’ve no idea of what you are referring to.”

On re-entering his room, Maurice went back to the window, and taking up his former attitude, began to beat anew that tattoo on the panes, which had been his chief employment during the day. His eyes were sore with straining at the corner of the street, tired of looking at his watch to see how the time passed. He had steadfastly believed that Louise would yield in this. matter, and, at the last, recall him in a burst of impulsive regret. But, as the day crawled by without a word from her, his confident conviction weakened; and, at the same time, his resolve not to go back till she sent for him, failed. He repeated, in memory, some of the bitter things they had said to each other, to see if he had not left himself a loophole of escape; but only with one half of his brain: the other was persistently occupied with the emptiness of the street below. When a clock struck half-past seven, he could bear the suspense no longer: he put on his hat and coat, and went out. He felt tired and unslept, and dragged along as if his body were a weight to him. A fine snow was falling, which froze into icicles on the beards of the passers-by, and on the glistening pavements. The distance had never seemed so long to him; it had also never seemed so short.

A faint and foolish hope still refused to be extinguished. But it went out directly he had unlocked the door; and he learned what he had come to learn, without the exchange of a word. The truth met him, that he should have been here hours ago, commanding, imploring; instead of which he had sat at home, nursing a futile and paltry pride.

The room was warm, and bright with extra candles. It was also in that state of confusion which accompanied an elaborate toilet on the part of Louise. Fully dressed, she stood before the console-glass, and arranged something in her hair. She did not turn at his entrance, but she raised her eyes and met his in the mirror, without pausing in what she was doing.

He looked over her shoulder at her reflected face. The cold steadiness, the open hostility of her look, took his strength away. He sat down on the foot-end of the bed, and put his head in his hands. Minutes passed, and still he remained in this position. For what was the use of his speaking? Her mind was made up; nothing would move her now.

Then came the noise of wheels in the street below. Uncovering his eyes, Maurice looked at her again; and, as he did so, his feelings which, until now, had had something of the nature of a personal wound, gave place to others with the rush of a storm. She wore the same sparkling, low-cut dress as on the previous occasion; arms and shoulders were as ruthlessly bared to view. He remembered what he had heard said of her that night, and felt that his powers of endurance were at an end. With a stifled exclamation, he got up from the bed, and going past her, into the half of the room beyond the screen, caught up the first object that came to hand, and threw it to the floor. It was a Dresden-china figure, and broke to pieces.

Louise gave a cry, and came running out to see what he had done. “Are you mad? How dare you! . . . break my things.”

She held a candle above her head, and by its light, he saw, in the skin of neck and shoulder, all the lines and folds that were formed by the raising of her arm. He now saw, too, that her hair was dressed in a different way, that her dark eyebrows had been made still darker, and that she was powdered. This discovery had a peculiar effect on him: it rendered it easier for him to say hard things to her; at the same time, it strengthened his determination not to let her go out of the house. Moving aimlessly about the room, he stumbled against a chair, and kicked it from him.

“A month ago, if some one had sworn to me that you would treat me as you are doitng to-night, I should have laughed in his face,” he said at last.

Louise had put the candle down, and was standing with her back to him. Taking up a pair of long, black gloves, she began to draw one over her hand. She did not look up at his words, but went on stroking the kid of the glove.

“You’re only doing it to revenge yourself—I know that! But what have I done, that you should take less thought for my feelings than if I were a dog?”

Still she did not speak.

“You won’t really go, Louise?—you won’t have the heart to.—I say you shall not go! It will be the end—the end of everything!—if you leave the house to-night.”

She pulled her dress from his hand. “You’re out of your senses, I think. The end of everything! Because, for once, I choose to have some pleasure on my own account! Any other man would be glad to see the woman he professes to care for, enjoy herself. But you begrudge it to me. You say my pleasures shall only come through you—who have taken to making life a burden to me! Can’t you understand that I’m glad to get away from you, and your ill-humours and mean, abominable jealousy. You’re not my master. I’m not your slave.” She tugged at a recalcitrant glove. “It is absurd,” she went on a moment later. “All because I wish to go out alone for once.—But did I even want to? Why, if it means so much to you, couldn’t you have bought a ticket and come too? But no! you wouldn’t go yourself, and so I was not to go either. It’s on a level with all your other behaviour.”

“I go!” he cried. “To watch you the whole evening in that man’s arms!—No, thank you! It’s not good enough.—You, with your indecent style of dancing!”

She wheeled round, as if the insult had struck her; and for a moment faced him, with open lips. Then she thought better of it: she laughed derisively, with a wanton undertone, in order to hurt him.

“You would at least have had me under your own eyes.”

As she spoke, she nodded to the old woman who opened the door to say that the droschke waited below. A lace scarf was lying on the table; Louise twisted it mechanically round her head, and began to struggle with an evening cloak. Just as she had succeeded in getting it over her shoulders, Maurice took her by the arms and bent her backwards, so that the cloak fell to the floor.

“You shall not go!”

She stemmed her hands against him, and determinedly, yet. with caution, pushed herself free.

“My dress—my hair! How dare you!”

“What do I care for your dress or your hair? You make me mad!”

“And what do I care whether you’re mad or not? Take your hands away!”

“Louise! . . . for God’s sake! . . . not with that man. At least, not with him. He has said infamous things of you. I never told you—yes, I heard him say—heard him compare you with . . . soiled goods he called you.—Louise! Louise!”

“Have you any more insults for me?”

“No, no more!” He leaned his back against the door. “Only this: if you leave this room to-night, it’s the end.”

She had picked up her cloak again. “The end!” she repeated, and looked contemptuously at him. “I should welcome it, if it were.—But you’re wrong. The end, the real end, came long ago. The beginning was the end!—Open that door, and let me out!”

He heard her go along the hall, heard the front door shut behind her, and, after a pause, heard the deeper tone of the house door. The droschke drove away. After that, he stood at the window, looking out into the pitch-dark night. Behind him, the landlady set the room in order, and extinguished the additional candles.

When she had finished, and shut the door, Maurice faced the empty room. His eyes ranged slowly over it; and he made a vague gesture that signified nothing. A few steps took him to the writing-table, on which her muff was lying. He lifted it up, and a bunch of violets fell into his hand. They brought her before him as nothing else could have done. Beside the bed, he went down on his knees, and drawing her pillow to him, pressed it round his head.

The end, the end!—the beginning the end: there was truth in what she had said. Their love had had no stamina in it, no vital power. He was losing her, steadily and surely losing her, powerless to help it—rather it seemed as if some malignant spirit urged him to hasten on the crisis. Their thoughts seemed hopelessly at war.—And yet, how he loved her! He made himself no illusions about her now; he understood just what she was, and what she would always be; the many conflicting impulses of her nature lay bare to him. But he loved her, loved her: all the dead weight of his physical craving for her was on him again, confounding, overmastering. None the less, she had left him; she had no need for him; and the hours would come, oftener and oftener, when she could do without him, when, as now, she voluntarily sought the company of other men. The thought suffocated him; he rose to his feet, and hastened out of the house.

A little before one o’clock, he was stationed opposite the sideentrance to the HOTEL DE PRUSSE. He had a long time to wait. As two o’clock approached, small batches of people emerged, at first at intervals, then more and more frequently. Among the last were Herries and Louise. Maurice remained standing in the shadow of some houses, until they had parted from their companions. He heard her voice above all the rest; it rang out clear and resonant, just as on that former occasion when she had drunk freely of champagne.

With many final words and false partings, she and Herries separated from the group, and turned to walk down the street. As they did so, Maurice sprang out from his hiding-place, and was suddenly in front of them, blocking their progress.

At his unexpected apparition, both started; and when he roughly took hold of her arm, Louise gave a short cry. Herries put out his hand, and smacked Maurice’s down.

“What are you doing there? Take your hands off this lady, damn you!” he cried in broken German, not recognising Maurice, and believing that he had to deal with an ordinary NACHTSCHWARMER.

The savageness with which he was turned on, enlightened him. “Damn you!” retorted Maurice in English. “Take your hands off her yourself I She belongs to me—to me, do you hear?—and I intend to keep her.”

“You drunken cur!” said Herries. He had instinctively allowed Louise to withdraw her arm; now he stood irresolute, uncertain how she would wish him to act. She had gone very pale; he believed she was afraid. “Isn’t there a droschke anywhere?” he said, and looked angrily round. “I really can’t see you exposed to this . . . this sort of thing, you know.”

Louise answered hurriedly. “No, no. And please go! I shall be all right. I’m sorry.—I had enjoyed it so much. I will tell you another time, how much. Good night, and thank you. No . . . PLEASE!> . . . yes, a delightful evening.” Her words were almost inaudible.

“Delightful indeed!” said Herries with warmth. Then he stood aside, raised his hat, and let them pass.

Maurice had his hand on her wrist, and he dragged her after him, over the frozen pavements, far more quickly than she could in comfort go, hampered as she was by snow-boots and by her heavy cloak. But she fqllowed him, allowed herself to be drawn, without protest. She felt strangely will-less. Only sometimes, when the thought of the indignity he had laid upon her came over her anew. did she whisper: “How dare you! ... oh, how dare you!”

He did not look at her, or answer her, and all might have gone well, so oddly did this treatment affect her, had he only persisted in it. But the mere contact of her hand softened him towards her; her nearness worked on him as it never failed to do. He was exhausted, too, mentally and physically, and at the thought that, for this night at least, his sufferings were over, he could have shed tears of relief. Slackening his pace, he began to speak, began to excuse and exculpate himself before ever she had blamed him, endeavouring to make her understand something of what he had gone through. In advance, and before she had expressed it, he sought to break down her spirit of animosity.

The longer he spoke, the harder she felt herself grow. He was at it again, back at his eternal self-justification. Oh, why, for this one evening at least, could he not have enforced his will, and have made her do what he wished, without explanation! But the one plain, simple way was the only way he never thought of taking. “I hate you and despise you! I shall never forgive you for your behaviour to-night!—never!” And now it was she who pressed forward, to get away from him.

He turned the key in the house-door. But before he could open the door, Louise, pushing in front of him, threw it back, entered the house, and, the next moment, the door banged in his face. He had just time to withdraw his hand. He heard her steps on the stair, mounting, growing fainter; he heard the door above open and shut.

For a second or two, he stood listening to these sounds. But when it dawned on him that she had shut him out, he pressed both hands against the wood of the heavy door, and tr to shake it open. He even beat his fist against it, and only desisted from this when his knuckles began to smart.

Then, on looking down, he saw that the key was still in the lock. He stared at it, stupidly, without understanding. But, yes—it was his own key; he himself had put it in. He took it out again, and holding it in his hand, looked at it, after the fashion of a drunken man, who does not recognise the object he holds. And even while he did this, he burst into a peal of laughter, which made him lean for support against the wall of the house. The noise he made sounded idiotic, sounded mad, in the quiet street; but he was unable to contain himself. She had left him the key—had left the key! Oh, what a fool he was!

His laughter died away. He opened the door, noiselessly, as he had learned by practice to do, and as noiselessly entered the vestibule and went up the stairs.

IX.


Several versions of the contretemps with Herries were afloat immediately. All agreed in one point: Maurice Guest had been in an advanced stage of intoxication. A scuffle was said to have taken place in the deserted street; there had been tears, and prayers, and shrill accusing voices. In the version that reached Madeleine’s cars, blows were mentioned. She stood aghast at the disclosures the story made, and at all these implied. Until now, Maurice had at least striven to preserve appearances. If once you became callous enough not to care what people said of you, you wilfully made of yourself a social outcast.

That same afternoon, as she was mounting the steps of the Conservatorium, she came face to face with Krafft. They had not met for weeks; and Madeleine remarked this, as they stood together. But she was not thinking very deeply of him or his affairs; and when she asked him if he would go across to her room, and wait for her there, she was following an impulse that had no connection with him. As usual, Krafft had nothing particular to do; and when she returned, half an hour later, she found him lying on her sofa, with his arms under his head, his knees crossed above him. The air of the room was grey with smoke; but, for once, Madeleine set no limit to his cigarettes. Sitting down at the table, she looked meditatively at him. For some moments neither spoke.

But as Krafft drew out his case to take another cigarette, a tattered volume of Reclam’s UNIVERSAL LIBRARY fell from his pocket, and spread itself on the floor. Madeleine stooped and pieced it together.

“What have we here ?—ah, your Bible!” she said sarcastically: it was a novel by a modern Danish poet, who died young. “You carry it about with you, I see.”

“To-day I needed STIMMUNG. But don’t say Bible; that’s an error of taste. Say ‘ death-book.’ One can study death in it, in all its forms.”

“To give you STIMMUNG! I can’t understand your love for the book, Heinz. It’s morbid.”

“Everything’s morbid that the ordinary mortal doesn’t wish to be reminded of. Some day—if I don’t turn stoker or acrobat beforehand, and give up peddling in the emotions—some day I shall write music to it. That would be a melodrama worth making.”

“Morbid, Heirtz, morbid!”

“All women are not of your opinion. I remember once hearing a woman say, had the author still lived, she would have pilgrimaged barefoot to see him.”

“Oh, I dare say. There are women enough of that kind.”

“Fools, of course?”

“Extravagant; unbalanced. The class of person that suffers from a diseased temperament.—But men can make fools of themselves, too. There are specimens enough here to start a museum with.”

“Of which you, as NORMALMENSCH, could be showman.”

Madeleine pushed her chair back towards the head of the, sofa, so that she came to sit out of the range of Krafft’s eyes.

“Talking of fools,” she said slowly, “have you seen anything of Maurice Guest lately?”

Krafft lowered a spike of ash into the tray. “I have not.”

“Yes; I heard he had got into a different hour,” she said disconnectedly. As, however, Krafft remained impassive, she took the leap. “Is there—can nothing be done for him, Heinz?”

Here Krafft did just what she had expected him to do: rose on his elbow, and turned to look at her. But her face was inscrutable.

“Explain,” he said, dropping back into his former position.

“Oh, explain!” she echoed, firing up at once. “I suppose if a fellow-mortal were on his way to the scaffold, you men would still ask for explanations. Listen to me. You’re the only man here Maurice was at all friendly with—I shouldn’t turn to you, you scoffer, you may be sure of it, if I knew of anyone else. He liked you; and at one time, what you said had a good deal of influence with him. It might still have. Go to him, Heinz, and talk straight to him. Make him think of his future, and of all the other things he has apparently forgotten.—You needn’t laugh! You could do it well enough if you chose—if you weren’t so hideously cynical.—Oh, don’t laugh like that! You’re loathsome when you do. And there’s nothing natural about it.”

But Krafft enjoyed himself undisturbed. “Not natural? It ought to be,” he said when he could speak again. “Oh, you English, you English!—was there ever a people like you? Don’t talk to me of men and women, Mada. Only an Englishwoman would look at the thing as you do. How you would love to reform and straitlace all us unregenerate youths! You’ve done your best for me—in vain!—and now it’s Guest. Mada, you have the Puritan’s watery fluid in your veins, and Cain’s mark on your brow: the mark of the raceace that carries its Sundays, its—language, its drinks, its dress, and its conventions with it, whereever it goes, and is surprised, and mildly shocked, if these things are not instantly adopted by the poor, purblind foreigner.—You are the missionaries of the world!”

“Oh, I’ve heard all that before. Some day, Heinz, you really must come to England and revise your impressions of us. However, I’m not going to let you shirk the subject. I will tell you this. I know the MILIEU Maurice Guest has sprung from, and I can judge, as you never can, how totally he is unfitting himself to return. The way he’s going on—I hear on all sides that he’ll never ‘make his PRUFUNG,’ now, and you yourself know his certificate won’t be worth a straw.”

“There’s something fascinating, I admit,” Krafft went on, “about a people of such a purely practical genius. And it follows, as a matter of course, that, being the extreme individualists you are, you should question the right of others to their particular mode of existence. For individualism of this type implies a training, a culture, a grand style, which it has taken centuries to attain—WE have still centuries to go, before we get there. If we ever do! For we are the artists among nations—waxen temperaments, formed to take on impressions, to be moulded this way and that, by our age, our epoch. You are the moralists, we are the . . .”

“The immoralists.”

“If you like. In your vocabulary, that’s a synonym for KUNSTLER.”

“You make me ill, Heinz!”

“KUSS’ DIE HAND!” He was silent, following a smoke-ring with his eyes. “Seriously, Mada,” he said after a moment—but there was no answering seriousness in his face, which mocked as usual. “Seriously, now, I suppose you wouldn’t admit what this DRESSUR, this HOHE SCHULE Guest is going through, might be of service to him in the end?”

“No, indeed, I wouldn’t,” she answered hotly. “You talk as if he were a circus-horse. Think of him now, and think of him as he was when he first came here. A good fellow—wasn’t he? And full to the brim of plans and projects—ridiculous enough, some of them—but the great thing is to be able to make plans. As long as a man can do that, he’s on the upward grade.—And he had talent, you said so yourself, and unlimited perseverance.”

“Good God, Madeleine” burst out Krafft. “That you should have been in this place as long as you have, and still remain so immaculate!—Surely you realise that something more than talent and perseverance is necessary? One can have talent as one has a hat . . . use it or not as one likes.—I tell you, the mill Guest is going through may be his salvation—artistically.”

“And morally?” asked Madeleine, not without bitterness. “Must one give thanks then, if one’s friend doesn’t turn out a genius?”

Krafft shrugged his shoulders. “As you take it. The artist has as much to do with morality, as, let us say, your musical festivals have to do with art.—And if his genius isn’t strong enough to float him, he goes under, UND DAMIT BASTA! The better for art. There are bunglers enough.—But I’ll tell you this,” he rose on his elbow again, and spoke more warmly. “Since I’ve seen what our friend is capable of; how he has allowed himself to be absorbed; since, in short, he has behaved In such a highly un-British way—well, since then, I have some hope of him. He seems open to impression.—And impressions are the only things that matter to the artist.”

“Oh, don’t go on, please! I’m sick to death of the very words art and artist.”

“Cheer up, Mada! You’ve nothing of the kind in your blood.” He stretched himself and yawned. “Nor has he, either, I believe. A face may deceive. And a clear head, and unlimited perseverance, and intelligence, and ambition—none of these things is enough. The Lord asks more of his chosen.”

Madeleine clasped her hands behind her head, and tilted back her chair.

“So you couldn’t interfere, I see? Your artistic conscience would forbid it.”

“Why don’t you do it yourself?” He scrutinised her face, with a sarcastic smile.

“Oh, say it out! I know what you think.”

“And am I not right?”

“No, you’re not. How I hate the construction you put on things! In your eyes, nothing is pure or disinterested. You can’t even imagine to yourself a friendship between a man and a woman. Such a thing isn’t known here—in your nation of artists. Your men are too inflammatory, and too self-sufficient, to want their calves fatted for any but the one sacrifice. Girls have their very kitchen-aprons tied on them with an undermeaning. And poor souls, who can blame them for submitting! What a fate is theirs, if they don’t manage to catch a man! Gossip and needlework are only slow poison.”

“Now you’re spiteful. But I’ll tell YOU something. Such friendships as you speak of are only possible where the woman is old—or ugly—or abnormal, in some way: a man-woman, or a clever woman, or some other freak of nature. Now, our women are, as a rule, sexually healthy. They know what they’re here for, too, and are not ashamed of it. Also, they still have their share of physical attraction. While yours—good God! I wonder you manage to keep the breed going!”

“Stop, Heinz!” said Madeleine sternly. “You are illogical, and indecent; and you know there’s a limit I don’t choose to let you pass.—You’re wrong, too. You’ve only to look about you, here, with unbiassed eyes, to see which race the prettiest girls belong to.—But never mind! You only launch out in this way that you may not be obliged to discuss Maurice Guest. I know you. I can read you like a book.”

“You are not very old . . . or ugly . . . or abnormal, Mada.”

She smiled in spite of herself. “And are we not friends, pray?”

“Something that way.—But in all you say about Guest, the impersonal note is wanting. You’re jealous.”

“I’m nothing of the sort!—But you’ll at least allow me to resent seeing a friend of mine in the claws of this . . . this vampire?”

Krafft laughed. “Vampire is good!—A poor, distraught—”

“Spare your phrases, Heinz. She’s bad through and through, and stupid into the bargain.”

“Lulu stupid? EI, EI, Mada! Your eyes are indeed askew. She has a touch of the other extreme—of genius.”

“NA!—Well, if this is another of your manifestations of genius, then permit me to hate—no, to loathe it, in all its forms.”

“GANZ NACH BELIEBEN! It’s a privilege of your sex, you know. There never was a woman yet who didn’t prefer a good, square talent.”

“A crack this way, and it’s madness; that, and the world says genius. And some people have a peculiar gift for discovering it. Those who set themselves to it can find genius in a flea’s jump.”

“But has it never occurred to you, that the power of loving—that some women have a genius for loving?—No, why do I ask! For if I am a book, you are a poster—a placard.”

“What a people you are for words! You make phrases about everything. That’s a ridiculous thing to say. If every fickle woman—”

“Fickle woman! fickle fiddle-sticks!” he interrupted. “That’s only a tag. The people whose business it is to decide these things—DIE HERREN DICHTER—are not agreed to this day whet it’s man who’s fickle or woman. In this mood it’s one, in that, the other; and the silly world bleats it after them, like sheep.”

“Well, if you wish me to put it more plainly: if what you say were true, vice would be condoned.”

“Vice!!” he cried with derision, and sat up and faced her. “Vice!—my dear Mada!—sweet, innocent child! . . . No, no. A special talent is needed for that kind of thing; an unlimited capacity for suffering; an entire renunciation of what is commonly called happiness! You hold the good old Philistine opinions. You think, no doubt, of two lovers living together in delirious pleasure, in SAUS UND BRAUS.—Nothing could be falser. A woman only needs to have the higher want in her nature, and the suffering is there, too. She’s born gifted with the faculty. And a woman of the type we’re speaking of, is as often as not the flower of her kind.—Or becomes it.—For see all she gains on her way: the mere passing from hand to hand; the intense impressionable nature; the process of being moulded—why, even the common prostitute gets a certain manly breadth of mind, such as you other women never arrive at. Each one who comes and goes leaves her something: an experience—a turn of thought—it may be only an intuition—which she has not had before.”

“And the contamination? The soul?” cried Madeleine; two red spots had come out on her cheeks.

“As you understand it, such a woman has no soul, and doesn’t need one. All she needs is tact and taste.”

“You are the eternal scoffer.”

“I never was more serious in my life.—But let us put it another way. What does a—what does any beautiful woman want with a soul, or brains, or morals, or whatever you choose to call it? Let her give thanks, night and day, that she is what she is: one of the few perfect things on this imperfect earth. Let her care for her beauty, and treasure it, and serve it. Time ,enough when it is gone, to cultivate the soul—if, indeed, she doesn’t bury herself alive, as it’s her duty to do, instead of decaying publicly. Mada! do you know a more disgusting, more humiliating sight than the sagging of the skin on a neck that was once like marble?— than a mouth visibly losing its form?—the slender shoulders we have adored, broadening into massivity?—all the fine spiritual delicacy of youth being touched to heaviness?—all the barbarous cruelty, in short, with which, before our eyes, time treats the woman who is no longer young.—No, no! As long as she has her beauty, a woman is under no necessity to bolster up her conscience, or to be reasonable, or to think. —Think? God forbid! There are plain women enough for that. We don’t ask our Lady of Milo to be witty for us, or to solve us problems. Believe me, there is more thought, more eloquence, in the corners of a beautiful mouth—the upward look of two dark eyes—than in all women have said or done from Sappho down. Springy colour, light, music, perfume: they are all to be found in the curves of a perfect throat or arm.”

Madeleine’s silence bristled with irony.

“And that,” he went on, “was where the girl you are blaspheming had such exquisite tact. She knew this. Her instinct taught her what was required of her. She would fall into an attitude, and remain motionless in it, as if she knew the eye must feast its full. Or if she did move, and speak—for she, too, had hours of a desperate garrulity—then one was content, as well. Her vitality was so intense that her whole body spoke when her lips did; she would pass so rapidly from one position to another that you had to shut your eyes for fear that, out of all this multitude, you would not be able to carry one away with you.—If some of her ways of expressing herself in motion could be caught and fixed, a sculptor’s fame would be made.—A painter’s, if he could reproduce the trick she has of smiling entirely with her eyes and eyebrows.—And then her hands! Mada, I wonder you other women don’t weep for envy of them. She has only to raise them, to pass them over her forehead, or to finger at her hair, and the world is hers.—Do you really think a man asks soul of a woman with such eyes and hand as those?—Good God, no! He worships her and adores her. Were is only one place for him, and that’s on his knees before her.”

“Well, really, Heinz!” said Madeleine, and the spots on her cheeks burnt a dull red. “In imagination, do you know, I’m carried just three years backwards? Do you remember that spring evening, when you came rushing in here to me? ‘I’ve seen the most beautiful woman in the world, and I’m drunk with her.’ And how I couldn’t understand? For I thought her plain, just as I still do.—But then, if I remember aright, your admiration was by no means the platonic, artistic affair it . . . hm! . . . is now.”

“It was not.—But now, you understand, Mada, that I think a man makes a good exchange of career, and success, and other such accidents of his material existence, for the right to touch these hands at will. The one thing necessary is, that he be fit for the post. I demand of him that he be a gourmand, a connoisseur in beauty. And it’s here, mind you, that I have doubts of our friend.—Is it clear to you?”

“As clear as day, thanks. And you may be QUITE sure: of me never applying to you for help again. I shall respect your principles.”

“And mind you, I don’t say Guest may not come out of the affair all right—enriched for the rest of his life.”

“Very good. And now you may go. I regret that I ever bothered with you.”

Krafft went across to where Madeleine was standing, put his hands on her two shoulders, and laid his head on his right arm, so that she, who was taller than he was, looked down on the roundnesses of his curly hair. “You’re a good fellow, Mada—a good fellow! JA, JA—who knows! If you had had just a little more of the EWIGWEIBLICHE about you!”

“Too much honour . . . But you don’t expect Englishwomen to join your harem, do, you?”

“There would have been a certain repose in belonging to a woman of your type. But it’s the charm—physical charm—we poor wretches can’t do without.”

“Upon my word, it’s almost a declaration!” cried Madeleine, not unnettled. “Take my advice, Heinz. Hie you home, and marry the person you ought to. Take pity on the poor thing’s constancy. Unless,” she added, a moment later, with a sarcastic laugh, “since you’re still so infatuated with Louise, you persuade her to transfer her favours to you. That would solve all difficulties in the most satisfactory way. She would have the variety that seems necessary to her existence; you could lie on your knees before her all day long; and our friend would be restored to sanity. Think it over, Heinz. It’s a good idea.”

“Do you think she’d have me?” he asked, as he shook himself into his coat.

“Heaven knows and Heaven only! Where Louise is concerned, nothing’s impossible—I’ve always maintained it.”

“Well, ta-ta!—You shall have early news, I promise you.”

Madeleine heard him go down the stair, whistling the ROSE OF SHARON. But he could not have been half-way to the bottom, when he turned and came back. Holding her door ajar, he stuck a laughing face into the room.

“Upon my word, Mada, I congratulate you! It’s a colossal idea.”

But Madeleine had had enough of him. “I’m glad it pleases you. Now go, go! You’ve played the fool here long enough.”

When he emerged from the house, Krafft had stopped whistling. He walked with his hands in his pockets, his felt hat pulled down over his eyes. At the corner, he was so lost in thought as to be unable to guide his feet: he stood and gazed at the pavement. Still on the same spot, he pushed his hat to the back of his head, and burst into such an eerie peal of laughter that some ladies, who were coming towards him, started back, and, picking up their skirts, went off the pavernent, in order to avoid passing him too nearly.

The following afternoon, at an hour when Maurice was safely out of the way, Krafft climbed the stair to the house in the BRUDERSTRASSE.

The landlady did not know him. Yes, Fraulein was at home, she said; but— Krafft promptly entered, and himself closed the door.

Outside Louise’s room, he listened, with bent head. Having satisfied himself, he turned the handle of the door and went in.

Louise stood at the window, watching the snow fall. It had snowed uninterruptedly since early morning; out of the leaden sky, flake after flake fluttered down, whirled, spun, and became part of the fallen mass. At the opening of the door, she did not stir; for it would only be Maurice coming back to ask forgiveness; and she was too unspeakably tired to begin all over again.

Krafft stood and eyed her, from the crown of her rough head, to the bedraggled tail of the dressing-gown.

“GRUSS’ GOTT, LULU!”

At the sound of his voice, she jumped round with a scream.

“You, Heinz! YOU!”

The blood suffused her face a purplish red; her voice was shrill with dismay; her eyes hung on the young man as though he were a returning spirit.

With an effort, she got the better of her first fright, and took a step towards him. “How DARE you come into this room!”

Krafft hung his wet coat over the back of a chair, and wiped his face dry of the melted snow.

“No heroics, Lulu!”

But she could not contain herself. “Oh, how dare you, It’s a mean, dishonourable trick—only you would do it!”

“Sit down and listen to what I have to say. It won’t take long. And it’s to your own advantage, I think, not to make a noise.—May I smoke?”

She obeyed, taking the nearest chair; for she had begun to tremble; her legs shook under her. But when he held out the case of cigarettes to her, she struck it, and the contents were spilled on the floor.

“Look here, Lulu,” he said, and crossing his legs, put one hand in his pocket, while with the other he made gestures suitable to his words. “I’ve not come here to-day to rake up old sores. Time has gone over them and healed them, and it’s only your—NEBENBEI GESAGT, extremely bad-conscience that makes you afraid of me. I’m not here for myself, but—”

“Heinz!” The cry escaped her against her will. “For him? You’ve come from him!”

He removed his cigarette and smiled. “Him? Which? Which of them do you mean?”

“Which?” It was another uncontrollable exclamation. Then the expression of almost savage joy that had lighted up her face, died out. “Oh, I know you! . . . know you and hate you, Heinz! I’ve never hated anyone as much as you.”

“And a woman of your temperament hates uncommonly well.—No, all jokes aside,”—the word cut her; he saw this, and repeated it. “Joking apart, I’ve come to you to-day, merely to ask if you don’t think your present little affair has gone far enough?”

She was as composed as he was. “What business is it of yours?”

“Oh, none. Except that the poor fool was once my friend.”

She gave a daring laugh, full of suggestion.

But Krafft was not put out by it. “Don’t do that again,” he said. “It sounds ugly; and you have nothing to do with ugliness, you know. No, I repeat once more: this is not a personal matter.”

“And you expect me to believe that?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

It was now she who smiled derisively. “Have you forgotten a certain evening in this room, three years ago?”

But he did not flinch. “Upon my word, if you are bold enough to recall that!—However, the reminder was unnecessary. Tell me now: aren’t you about done with Guest?”

For still a moment, she fought to keep up her show of dignity. Then she broke down. “Heinz!—oh, I don’t know! Oh, yes, yes, yes—a thousand times, yes! Oh, I’m so tired—I can’t tell you how tired I am—of the very sight of him! I never wanted him, believe me, I didn’t! He thrust himself on me. It was not my doing.”

“Oh, come now! Tell that to some one else.”

“Yes, I know: you only think the worst of me. But though I was weak, and yielded, anyone would have done the same. He gave me no peace.—But I’ve been punished out of all proportion to the little bit of happiness it brought me. There’s no more miserable creature alive than I am.”

“What interests me,” continued Krafft, in a matter-of-fact tone, “is, how you came to choose so far afield from your particular type. It’s well enough represented here.”

She saw the folly of wasting herself upon him, and gave a deep sigh. Then, however, the same wild change as before came over her face. Stooping, she took his hand and fondled it.

“Heinz! Now that you’re here, do one thing—only one—for me! Have pity on me! I’ve gone through so much—been so unhappy. Tell me—there’s only one thing I want to know. Where is he? Will he NEVER come back? For you know. You must know. You have seen him.”

She had sunk to her knees; her head was bent over his hand; she laid her cheek against it. Krafft considered her thoughtfully; his eye dwelt with approval on the broad, slender shoulders, the lithe neck—all the sure grace of the crouching body.

“Will you do something for me, Lulu?”

“Anything!”

“Then let your hair down.”

He himself drew out the pins and combs that held it, and the black mass fell, and lay in wide, generous waves round face and neck.

“That’s the idea! Now go on.”

Louise kissed his hand. “Tell me; you must know.”

“But is it possible that still interests you?”

“Oh, no! My life depends on it, that’s all. You are cruel and bad; but still I can speak to you—for months now, I haven’t had a soul to speak to. Be kind to me this once, Heinz. I CAN’T go on living without him. I haven’t lived since he left me—not an hour!—Oh, you’re my last hope!”

“You’ll have plenty of hopes in your life yet.”

“In those old days, you hated me, too. But don’t bear malice now. There’s nothing I won’t do for you, if you tell me. I’ll never speak to—never even think of you again.”

“I’m not so long-suffering.”

“Then you won’t tell me?”

“I didn’t say that.”

She crushed his hand between hers. “Here’s the chance you asked for—to save your friend! Oh, won’t you understand?”

An inward satisfaction, of which only he himself knew the cause, warmed Krafft through at seeing her prostrate before him. But as he continued to look at her, a thought crossed his mind, and quickly resolved, he laid his cigarette on the table, and put his hands, first on her head, amid the tempting confusion of her hair, which met them like a thick stuff pleasant to the touch, and from there to her shoulders, inclining her towards him. She looked up, and though her eyes were full of tears, her white face was alight in an instant with hope again, as he said: “Would you do something else for me if I told you?”

She strained back, so that she might see his face. “Heinz!—what is it?” And then, with a sudden gasp of comprehension:

“Oh, if that’s all!—I will never see Maurice Guest again.”

“That’s not it.”

“What is it then?”

“Will you listen quietly?”

“Yes, yes.” She ceased to draw back, let herself be held. But he felt her trembling.

He whispered a few words in her ear. Almost simultaneously she jerked her head away, and, turning a dark red, stared incredulously at him. Then she sprang to her feet.

“Oh, what a fool I am! To believe, for one instant, there was a human spot in you I could get at!—Take your hands away—take them off me! Because I’ve had no one to speak to for so long: because I know YOU could understand if you would—Oh, when a woman is down, anyone may hit her.”

“Gently, gently!—You’re too good for such phrases.”

“I’m no different from other women. It’s only you—with your horrible thoughts of me. YOU! Why, you’re no more to me than the floor I stand on.”

“And matters are simplified by that very fact.—I can give you his address, Lulu.”

“Go away! I may hurt you. I could kill you.—Go away!”

“And this,” said Krafft, as he put on his coat again, “is how a woman listens quietly. Well, Lulu, think it over. A word at any time will bring me, if you change your mind.”

One evening, about a week later, Maurice entered Seyffert’s Cafe. The heavy snowfall had been succeeded by a period of thaw—of slush and gloom; and, on this particular night, a keen wind had risen, making the streets seem doubly cheerless. It was close on nine o’clock, and Seyffert’s was crowded with its usual guests—young people, who had escaped from more or less dingy rooms to the warmth and light of the cafe, where the yellow blinds were drawn against the inclement night. The billiard table in the centre was never free; those players whose turn had not yet come, or was over, stood round it, cigarette or large black cigar in hand, and watched the game.

Maurice had difficulty in finding a seat. When he did, it was at a table for two, in a corner. A youth who had already eaten his supper, sat alone there, picking his teeth. Maurice took the opposite chair, and made his evening meal with a languid appetite. At the other side of the room was a large and boisterous party, whose leader was Krafft—Krafit in his most outrageous mood. Every other minute, his sallies evoked roars of laughter. Maurice refrained from glancing in that direction. When, however, his VIS-A-VIS got up and went away, he was startled from his conning of the afternoon paper by seeing Krafft before him. The latter, who carried his beer-mug in his hand, took the vacated scat, nodded and smiled.

Maurice was on his guard at once; for it seemed to him that they were being watched by the party Krafft had left. Putting down the newspaper, he wished his friend good-evening.

“I’ve something to say to you,” said Krafft without responding, and, having drained his glass, he clapped the lid to attract the waiter’s attention.

With the over-anxious readiness to oblige, which was becoming one of his most marked traits, and, in reality, cloaked a deathly indifference, Maurice hung up his paper, and sat forward to listen. Crossing his arms on the table, Krafft began to speak, meanwhile fixing his companion with his eye. Maurice was at first too bewildered by what he heard to know to whom the words referred. Then, the colour mounted to his face; the nerves in his temples began to throb; and his hand moved along the edge of the table, in search of something to which it could hold fast.—It was the first time the name of Louise had been mentioned between them—and in what a tone!

“Heinz!” he said at last; his voice seemed not to be his own. “How dare you speak of Miss Dufrayer like that!”

“PARDON!” said Krafft; his flushed, transparent cheeks were aglow, his limpid eyes shone like stars. “Do you mean Lulu?”

Maurice grew pale. “Mind what you’re saying!”

Krafft took a gulp of beer. “Are you afraid of the truth?—But just one word, and I’m done. You no doubt knew, as every one else did, that Lulu was Schilsky’s mistress. What you didn’t know, was this;” and now, without the least attempt at palliation, without a single extenuating word, there fell from his lips the quick and witty narration of an episode in which Louise and he had played the chief parts. It was the keynote of their relations to each other: the story, grossly told, of a woman’s unsatisfied fancy.

Before the pitiless details, not one of which was spared him, were checked off, Maurice understood; half rising from his chair, he struck Krafft a resounding blow in the face. He had intended to hit the mouth, but, his hand remaining fully open, caught on the cheek, and with such force that the delicate skin instantly bore a white imprint of all five fingers.

Only the people in their immediate neighbourhood saw what had happened; but these sprang up; a girl gave a nervous cry; and in a minute, the further occupants of the room had gathered round them, the billiard-players with their cues in their hands. Two waiters, napkin on arm, hastened up, and the proprietor came out from an inner room, and rubbed his hands.

“MEINE HERREN! MEINE HERREN!”

Krafft had jumped to his feet; he was also unable to refrain from putting his hand to his tingling face. Maurice, who was very pale, stood staring, like a person in a trance, at the mark, now deep red, which his hand had left on his friend’s cheek. There was a solemn pause; all eyes were fixed on Krafft; and the stillness was only broken by the proprietor’s persuasive: “MEINE HERREN! MEINE HERREN!”

In half a minute Krafft had collected himself. Turning, he jauntily waved his hand to those pressing up behind; though one side of his face still blazed and burned.

“Don’t allow yourselves to be disturbed, gentlemen. The incident is closed—for the present, at least. My friend here was carried away by a momentary excitement. Kindly resume your seats, and act as if nothing had happened. I shall call him to account at my own convenience.—But just one moment, please!”

The last words were addressed to Maurice. Opening a notebook, Krafft tore out one of the little pages, and, with his customary indolence of movement, wrote something on it. Then he folded it through the middle, and across again, and gave it to Maurice.

Maurice took it, because there seemed nothing else for him to do; he also, for the same reason, took his coat and hat, which some one handed to him. He saw nothing of what went on—nothing but the five outspread marks, which had run together so slowly. He had, however, enough presence of mind to do what was evidently expected of him; and, in the hush that still prevailed, he left the cafe.

The wind sent a blast in his face. Round the corners of the streets, which it was briskly scavenging, it swept in boisterous gusts, which beat the gas-flames flat as soon as they reared themselves, and made them give a wavering, uncertain light. Not a soul was visible. But in the moment that he stood hesitating outside the brilliancy of the yellow blinds, the hubbub of voices burst forth again. He moved hastily away, and began to walk, to put distance between himself and the place. He did not shrink before the wind-scourged meadows, but fought his way forward, till he reached the woods. There he threw himself face downwards on the first bench he came to.

A smell of rotting and decay met his nostrils: as if, from the thousands of leaves, mouldering under the trees on which they had once hung, some invisible hand had set free thousands of odours, there mounted to him, as he lay, all that rich and humid earthiness that belongs to sunless places. And for a time, he was conscious of little else but this morbid fragrance.

An open brawl! He had struck a man in the face before a crowd of onlookers, and had as good as been ejected from their midst. From now on, he was an outcast from orderly society, was branded as one who was not wholly responsible for his actions—he, Maurice Guest, who had ever been so chary of committing himself. What made the matter seem still blacker, too, in his own eyes, was the fact of Krafft having once been his intimate, personal friend. Now, he could never even think of him again, without, at the same time, seeing the mark of his hand on Krafft’s cheek. If the blow had remained invisible, it might have been more easily forgotten; but he had seen it, as it were, taken shape before him.—Or, had it only been returned, it would have helped to lessen the weight of his present abasement—oh, he would have given all he had to have felt a return blow on his own face! Even the smallest loss of selfcontrol on the part of Krafft would have been enough. But the latter was too proud to give himself away gratuitously: he preferred to take his revenge in the more unconventional fashion of leaving his friend to bear the ignominy alone.

Maurice lay stabbing himself with these and similar thoughts. Only little by little did the tumult that had been roused in him abate. Then, and just the more vividly for the break in his memory, the gross words Krafft had said, came back to him. Recalling them, he felt an intense bitterness against Louise. She was the cause of all his sufferings; were it not for her, he might still be leading a quiet, decent life. It was her doing that he was compelled to part, bit by bit, with his selfrespect. Not once, in all the months they had been together, had the smallest good come to him through her. Nothing but misery.

Now, he had no further rest where he was. He must go to her, and tax her with it, repeat what Krafft had said, to her very face. She should suffer, too—and the foretasted anguish and pleasure of hot recriminations dulled all other feelings in him.

He rose, chilled to the bone from his exposure; one hand, which had hung down over the bench, was wet and sticky from grasping handfuls of dead leaves.

It was past eleven o’clock. Louise wakened with a start, and, at the sight of his muddy, dishevelled dress, rose to her elbow.

“What is it? What’s the matter? Where have you been?”

He stood at the foot of the bed, and looked at her. The loose masses of her hair, which had come unplaited, arrested his attention: he had never seemed to know before how brutally black it was. With his eyes fixed on it, he repeated what Krafft had told him.

Louise lay with the back of one hand on her forehead, and watched him from under it. When he had finished, she said: “So Heinz has raked up that old story again, has he?”

Maurice had expected—yes, what had he expected?—anger, perhaps, or denial, or, it might be, vituperation; only not the almost impartial composure with which she listened to him. For he had not spared her a word.

“Is that all you’ve got to say?” he cried, suffocated with doubt. “Then you . . . you admit it?”

“Admit it! Maurice! Are you crazy?—to wake me up for this! It happened YEARS ago!”

His recoil of disgust was too marked to be ignored. Louise half sat up in bed again, supporting herself on one hand. Her nightgown was not buttoned; he saw to the waist a strip of the white skin beneath, saw, too, how a long black strand of her hair fell in and lay on it.

“You won’t tell me you didn’t know from the first there had been . . . something between Heinz and me?” she cried, roused to defend herself.—“And look here, Maurice, as he told you that, it’s my turn now. I’ll tell you why! “And sitting still more upright, she gave a reason which made him grasp the knob of the bed-post so fiercely that it came away in his hand. He threw it into a corner.

“Louise! . . . you! to take such words on your tongue! Is there no shame left in you?” His throat was dry and narrow.

“Shame! You only mean the need for concealment. Before you had got me, there was no talk of shame.”

“Do you know what you’re saying?”

“Oh, that’s your eternal cry!” and, suddenly spurred to anger, she rose again. “I know—yes, I know! Do you think I’m a fool? Why must you alone be so innocent! Why should you alone not know that I was only jealous of a single person, and that was Krafft?”

Maurice turned away. In the comparative darkness behind the screen, he sat down on the sofa, put his arms on the table, and his head on his arms. He was exhausted, and found he must have slept as he sat; for when he lifted his head again, the hands of the clock had moved forward by several hours.

X.


One morning towards the end of January, Krafft disappeared from Leipzig, and some days later, the body of Avery Hill was found in a secluded reach of the Pleisse, just below Connewitz. Some workmen, tramping townwards soon after dawn, noticed a strip of light stuff twisted round a snag, which projected slightly above the surface of the water. It proved to be the skirt of her dress, which had been caught and held fast. Ambulance and police were summoned, and the body was recovered and taken to the police-station.

The last of his friends to see Krafft was Madeleine, and the number of those interested in his departure, and in Avery’s quick suicide, was so large that she several times had to repeat her lively account of the last visit he paid her. He had come in, one afternoon, and settling himself on the sofa, refused to be dislodged. As he was in one of his most ambiguous moods, she left him to himself, and went on with her work.

On rising to go, he had stood for a moment with his hands on her shoulders.

“Well, Mada, whatever happens, remember I was sorry you wouldn’t have me.”

“Oh, come now, Heinz, you never really asked me!”

It was snowing hard that night, a moist, soft snow that melted as it touched the ground, and Krafft borrowed her umbrella. As usual, however, he returned before he could have got half-way down the stairs, to say that he had changed his mind and would not take it.

“But you’ll get wet through.”

“I don’t want your umbrella, I tell you.—Or have you two?”

“No; but I’m not going out.—Oh, well, leave it then. And may you reap a frightful rheumatism!”

As he went down, for the second time, he whistled the ROSE OF SHARON: she listened to it grow fainter in the distance: and that was the last she or anyone had heard of Krafft. The following morning, his landlady found a note on her kitchen-table, instructing her to keep his belongings for four weeks. If, by that time, they had not been claimed, she might sell them, and take the money obtained for herself. Only a few personal articles were missing, such as would be necessary for a hurried journey.—Of course, so Madeleine wound up the story, she had never expected Heinz to behave like a normal mortal, and to take leave of his friends in the ordinary way, and she was also grateful to him for not pilfering her umbrella, which was silvertopped. All the same, there was something indecent about his behaviour. It showed how little he had, at heart, cared for any of them. Only a person who thoroughly despised others, would treat them in this way, playing with them up to the last minute, as one plays with dolls or fools.

Avery Hill was laid out in a small room adjoining the policestation. It was evening before the business of identification was over. Various members of the American colony had to give evidence, and the services of the consul were called into play, for there were countless difficulties, formalities and ceremonies attached to this death by one’s own hand in a foreign country. Before all the technical details were concluded, there were those who thought—and openly said so—that an intending suicide might cast a merciful thought on the survivors. Only Dove made no complaint. He had been one of the first to learn what had happened, and, in the days that followed, he ran to and fro, from one BUREAU to another, receiving signatures, and witnessing them, bearing the whole brunt of surly Saxon officialdom on his own shoulders.

Twenty-four hours later, it had been arranged that the body should be buried on the JOHANNISFRIEDHOF, and the consul was advised by cablegram to lay out the money for the funeral. Under the eyes of a police-officer and a young clerk from the consul’s office, Madeleine, assisted by Miss Jensen, went through the dead girl’s belongings, and packed them together.

Miss Jensen kept up, in a low voice, a running commentary on the falsity of men and the foolishness of women. But, at times, her natural kindness of heart asserted itself, to the confusion of her theories.

“Poor thing, poor young thing!” she murmured, gazing at a pair of well-patched boots which she held in her hand. “If only she had come to us!—and let us help her!”

“Help her?” echoed Madeleine in a testy way; she was one of those who thought that the dead girl might have shown more consideration for her friends, standing, as they did, immediately before their PRUFUNGEN. “Could one help her ever having set eyes on that attractive scoundrel?—And besides, it’s easy enough thinking afterwards, one might have been able to help, to do this and that. It’s a mistake. People don’t want help; and they don’t give you a thank-you for offering it. All they ask is to be let alone, to muddle and bungle their lives as they like.”

As they walked home together, Miss Jensen returned once more to the subject of Krafft’s failings.

“I’ve known many men,” she said, “one more credulously vain and stupid than another; for unless a man is engaged in satisfying his brute instincts, he can be twisted round the finger of ANY woman. But Mr. Krafft was the only one I’ve met, who didn’t appear to me to have a single good impulse.”

The big woman’s high-pitched voice grated on Madeleine.

“You’re quite wrong there,” she said more snappily than before. “Heinz had as many good impulses as anyone else. But he had reduced the concealing of them to a fine art. He was never happier than when he had succeeded in giving a totally false impression of himself. Take me for this, for that! —just what I choose. Often it was as if he flung a bone to a dog: there! that’s good enough for you. No one knew Heinz: each of us knew a little bit of him, and thought it was all there was to know.—He never showed a good impulse: that is as much as saying that he swarmed with them. And no doubt he would have considered that, with regard to you, he had been entirely successful. You have the idea of him he meant you to have.”

“He was never her lover,” said Louise with a studied carelessness.

Maurice, to whom nothing was more offensive than the tone of bravado in which she flaunted subjects of this nature, was stung to retaliation.

“How do YOU know?”

“Well, if you wish to hear—from his own lips.”

“Do you mean to say you’ve spoken to Heinz about things of that kind?—discussed his relations with other women?”

“Do you need reminding that I knew Heinz before I had ever heard of you?”

He turned away, too dispirited to cross words with her. The events of the past week had closed over his head as two waves Close over a swimmer, cutting off light and air. Since the night on which he had left his whilom friend the mark of his spread fingers as a parting gift, he had ceased to care greatly about anything.

Compared with his pessimistic absorption in himself, Avery’s suicide and Krafft’s departure touched him lightly. For the girl, he had never cared. As soon, though, as he heard that Krafft had disappeared, he turned out his pockets for the scrap of paper Heinz had given him that evening in the cafe. But it threw no light on what had happened. It was merely an address, and, twist it as he would, Maurice could make no more of it than the words: KLOSTERGASSE 12. He resolved to go through the street of that name in the afternoon; but, when the time came, he forgot about it, and it was not till next morning that he carried out his intention. There was, however, nothing to be learned; number twelve was a gunsmith’s shop, and at his hesitating inquiry, if anything were known there of a music-student called Krafft, the owner of the shop looked at him as if he were a lunatic, and answered rudely: was the Herr under the impression that the shop was an information BUREAU?

Louise was dressed to go out. Pressed as to her destination, she said that she was going to see the body. Maurice sought in vain to dissuade her.

“It’s a perverse thing to do,” he cried. “You didn’t care a fig for the girl when she was alive. But now she can’t forbid it, you go and stare at her, out of nothing but curiosity.”

“How do you know whether I cared for her or not?” Louise threw at him: she was tying on her’ veil before the glass. “Do you think I tell you everything?—And as for your ‘perverse,’ it’s the same with all I ever do. You have made it your business always to find my wishes absurd.” She took up her gloves and, holding them together, hit her muff with them. “In this case, it doesn’t concern you in the least. I don’t ask you to come. I want to go alone.”

The more shattered and unsure he grew, the more self-assertive was she. There was an air of bravado in all she did, at this time—as in the matter of her determination to go to the dead-house—and she hurt him, with reckless cruelty, whenever a chance offered. Her pale mouth seemed only to open to say unkind things, and her eyes weighed him with an ironic contempt. To his jarred ears, her very laugh sounded less fine. At moments, she began almost to look ugly to him; but it was a dangerous ugliness, more seductive than her beauty had ever been. Then, he knew that she was not too good for him, nor he for her, nor either of them for the world they lived in.

They walked side by side to the mortuary. It was a very cold day, and Louise wore heavy furs, from which her face rose enticingly. The attention she attracted was to Maurice like gall to a wound.

There was not much difficulty in gaining admittance to the dead. A small coin changed hands, and a man in uniform opened the door.

The post-mortem examination had been held that day, and the body was swathed from head to foot in a white sheet. It lay on a long, projecting shelf, and a ticket was pinned on the wall at its head. On the opposite side of the room, on a similar shelf, was another shrouded figure—the body of a workingman, found that morning on the outskirts of the town, with an empty bottle which had contained carbolic acid by its side. The LEICHENFRAU, the public layer—out of the dead, told them this; it was she, too, who drew back the sheet from Avery’s face in order that they might see it. She was a rosy, apple-cheeked woman, and her vivid colouring was thrown into relief by the long black cloak and the close-fitting, black poke-bonnet that she wore. Maurice, for whom the dead as such had no attraction, turned from his contemplation of the stark-stretched figure on the shelf, to watch the living woman. The exuberance of her vitality had something almost insultant in the presence of these two rigid forms, from whose faces the colour had fled for ever. Her eyes were alert like those of a bird; her voice and movements were loud and bustling. In thought he compared her to a carrion-crow. It was this woman’s calling to live on the dead; she hastened from house to house to cleanse poor, inanimate bodies, whose dignity had departed from them. He wondered idly whether she gloated over the announcements of fresh deaths, and mentally sped the dying. Did she talk of good seasons and of slack seasons, and look forward to the spread of contagious disease?—Well, at least, she throve on her trade, as a butcher thrives by continually handling meat.

Louise had eyes only for the face of the dead girl. She stood gazing at it, with a curious absorption, but without a spark of feeling. The LEICHENFRAU, having finished tying up a basket, crossed the room and joined her.

“EINE SCHONE LEICHE!” she said, and nodded, appreciating the fact that a stranger should admire what was partly her own handiwork.

It was true; Avery’s face looked as though it were modelled in wax. She had not been in the water for more than half an hour, had said the doctor, not long enough to be disfigured in any way. Only her hair remained dank and matted, and, although it was laid straight out over the bolster, it would probably never be quite dry again. No matter, continued the woman; on. the morrow would come the barber, a good friend of hers, to dress it for the tomb; he would bring tongs and irons, and other heating-apparatus with him, and, for certain, would make a good job of it, so skilled was he: he had all the latest fashions in hair-dressing at his finger-ends. The face itself was as placid as it had been in life; the lids were firmly closed—no peeping or squinting here—and the lips met and rested on each other round and full. Seen like this, it now became evident that his face was one of those which are, all along, intended for death—intended, that is, to lie waxen and immobile, to show to best advantage. In life, there had been too marked a discrepancy between the extreme warmth of the girl’s colouring and the extreme immobility of her expression. Now that the blood had, as it were, been drained away to the last drop, now that temples and nostrils had attained transparency, the fine texture of the skin and the beauty of the curves of lips and chin were visible to every eye. Only one hand, so the LEICHENFRAU babbled on, was convulsively closed, and could not be undone; and, as she spoke, she drew the sheet further down, and displayed the naked arm and hand: the long, fine fingers were clenched, the thumb inside the rest. Otherwise, Avery appeared to sleep, to sleep profoundly, with an intensity such as living sleep never attains to—the very epitome of repose. It seemed as if her eyelids were pressed down by some unseen force; and, in her presence, the feeling gained ground in one, that it was worth enduring much, to arrive at a rest of this kind at last.

“JA, JA,” said the woman, and rearranged the covering. “It’s a pleasure to handle such a pretty corpse. That one there, now,”—with her chin she pointed to the other figure, and made a face of disgust. “EIN EKLIGER KERL! There was nothing to be done with him.”

“Let me see what he’s like,” begged Louise.

“It’s an ugly sight,” said the woman. However, she pulled the sheet down, and so far that not only the face, but also a part of the hairy black breast was visible.

Louise shuddered, yet the very horror of the thing fascinated her, and she plied the woman with questions about the workings of the agonising poison that had been swallowed. After one hasty glance, Maurice had turned away, and now stood staring out of the high, barred window into a gloomy little courtyard, For him, the air of the room was hard to breathe, owing to the faint, yet unmistakable odour, which even the waxen figure of the girl had begun to exhale; and he marvelled how Louise, who was so sensitive, could endure it.

Outside, both drew long breaths of the cold, evening air, and Louise bought a bunch of violets, which she pressed to nose and mouth.

“Horrible, horrible!” she said, at the same time raising her shoulders in their heavy cape. “Oh, that man!—I shall never forget his face.”

“What do you go to such places for? You have only yourself to thank for it.” He, too, was aware that a needless and repellent memory had been added to their lives.

“Oh, everything’s my own fault—I know that. You are never to blame for anything!”

“Did I ask you to go there ?—did I?”

But she only laughed in reply, through and through hostile to him; and they walked for some distance in silence.

“Why are you going this way?” he asked suspiciously, when she turned into a street that led in the opposite direction to that which they should have taken.

“I’m not going home. I couldn’t sit alone in the dark with that . . that thing before my eyes.”

“Who asked you to sit alone?—Where are you going?”

“I don’t know . . . where I like.”

“That’s no answer.”

“And if I don’t choose to answer?—I don’t want you. I want to be alone. I’m sick of your perpetual bad-temper, and your eternal slf-righteousness.”

He laughed, just as she had done. The sound enraged her.

“Oh, the dead at least are at peace!” she cried.

“Yes! . . . why don’t you say it? You wish you were lying there—at peace from me!”

“Why should I say what you know so well?”

“Go and do it then!—who’s hindering you?”

“For you?—kill myself for you?”

One word gave another; they pressed forward, in the falling dusk, like two distraught creatures, heedless of the notice they attracted, or of who should hear their bitter words. And because their gestures were, to some extent, regulated by the conventions of the street, because they could not face each other with flaming eyes, and throw out hands and arms to emphasise what they said, their words were all the more cruel. Louise made straight for home now; she escaped into the house, banging the door. Maurice strode down the street, in a tumult of resentment, vowing never to return.

Avery Hill was buried the following afternoon. Maurice went to the funeral, becaug, since he had seen the dead girl’s body at the mortuary, he had been invaded by a kind of pity for her, lying alone at the mercy of barber and LEICHENFRAU. And so, towards three o’clock, he fought his way against a cutting wind to the JOHANNISFRIEDHOF.

A mere handful of people stood round the grave. In addition to the English chaplain, and a couple of diggers, there were present Dove, two Americans, and a young clerk from the consul’s office, who was happy to be associated, in any fashion, with the English residents. It was the coldest day of that winter. Over the earth swept a harsh, dry wind, which cut like the blade of a knife, and forced stinging tears from the eyes. This wind had dried the frozen surface of the ground to the impenetrability of iron; loose earth crumbled before it like powder. Grass and shrubs had shrivelled, blighted by its breath; the bare trees were sooty-black against the sky. So intense was the prevailing sensation of icy dryness that it seemed as if the earth would never again know moisture. People’s faces grew as wizened as the skins of old apples; throats and lungs were choked by the grey dust, which whirled through the streets, and made breathing an effort.

In the outlying cemetery it was still bleaker than in the shelter of the houses. Over this stretch of ground the wind swept as over the surface of a sea. The grave-diggers related the extraordinary difficulty they had had in digging the grave; the earth that had been thrown up lay cracked into huge, frozen lumps. These two men stood in the background while the service was going on, and stamped their feet and beat their hands, encased in monstrous woollen gloves, to keep the blood flowing. The English chaplain, a tall, cadaverous man, with sunken cheeks and a straw-coloured beard, had wound a red and white comforter over his surplice; the five young men pulled down the ear-flaps of their caps, and stood, with high-drawn shoulders. burrowing their hands in their pockets. The chaplain gabbled the few necessary prayers: they were inaudible to his hearers; for the rushing wind carried them straight over his shoulder into space. He was not more than a bare ten minutes over the service. Then the diggers came forward to lower the coffin. Owing to the stiffness of their hands, the ropes slid from their grasp, and the coffin fell forward into the hard yellow grave with a bump. The young men took the obligatory handfuls of earth, and struck the side of the coffin with them as gently as possible. With the last word still on his lips, the chaplain shut his book and fled; and the rest hastily dispersed. Maurice shook off the young clerk, who was murmuring unintelligible words of sympathy, and left the cemetery in the wake of the two Americans, for whom a droschke was in waiting to take them back to the town.

“Waal, I’m sort o’ relieved that wasn’t MY funeral,” he heard one of them say.

He walked at full speed to restore his famished circulation. When he was in the heart of the town again, he entered a cafe; and there he remained, with his elbows on the little marble table, letting the scene he had just come through pass once more before his mind. There had been something grotesquely indecent about the haste of every one concerned: the chaplain, gabbling like a parrot, out of regard for the safety of his own lungs; the hurry-skurry of the diggers, whose thoughts were no doubt running on the size of their gratuities; the openly expressed satisfaction of the few mourners, when they were free to hurry off again, as in hurry they had arrived. Not one present but had counted the minutes, at the expiry of which the dead girl would be consigned to her appointed hole. What an ending! All the talent, the incipient genius, that had been in her, thrust away with the greatest possible despatch, buried out of sight in the hideously hard, cold earth. Snuffed out like a candle, and with as little ceremony, was all the warm, complex life that had made up this one, throbbing bit of humanity: for what it had been, not a soul alive now cared. And what a night, too, for one’s first night underground! Brr!—At the thought of it, he drank another cup of coffee, and a fiery, stirring liqueur. But the sense of depression clung to him, and, as he walked home, he regretted the impulse that had led him to attend the funeral. For all the melancholy of valediction was his. The dead girl was free—and he had a sudden vision of her, as she had lain in the mortuary, with the look of superhuman peace on her face. Over the head of this, he was sarcastic at his own expense. For though she WERE being treated like a piece of lumber, what did it matter to her? Beneath the screening lid, she continued to sleep, tranquil, undisturbed. On the other hand, how absurd it was that he, who had cared little for her in life, should in this wise constitute himself her only mourner! And, mentally and physically, he now jerked himself to rights, and even began to whistle, as he went, in an attempt to seem at harmony with himself. But the tune that rose to his lips was Krafft’s song, THE ROSE OF SHARON, and he straightway broke off, in disgust and confusion.

In his room, as soon as he had struck a match to light the lamp, he saw that a letter was lying on the table. By the gradual spread of the light, he made out that it bore an Austrian stamp, and directly he took it in his hand, he recognised the writing. Heinz!—it was from Heinz! He tore open the envelope with unsteady fingers; what could Heinz have to write to him about? Instinctively, he connected it in some way with the events of the afternoon. But it was a very brief note, covering hardly a page of the paper. Standing beside the lamp, Maurice held the sheet in the circle of light, and ran his eye over the few lines. He took them in, in a flash, that is to say, he read them automatically; but their sense did not penetrate his brain. He tried again, and still he could not grasp what they meant; still again, and slowly, word by word, till he could have repeated them by heart; but always without getting at their inner meaning. Then, however, and all of a sudden, as if some inner consciousness had understood them, and now gave bodily warning of it; suddenly, his knees began to shake, and he was forced to sit down. Sitting, he continued to stare at the page of writing before him, with contracted pupils. He commenced to read again, and even said the first line or two of the letter aloud, as if that might aid him. But the paper fell from his hand, and he gazed, instead, into the flame of the lamp, right into the inmost flame, till he was blind with it. His head fell forward, and lay on his hands, and on the rustling sheet of paper.

“God in Heaven!”

He heard himself say it, and was even conscious of the fact that, like every mortal in the throes of a strong emotion, he, too, called on God.

A long and profound silence ensued. It went on and on, persisted, was about to become eternal, when it was rudely broken by the sound of a child’s cry. He raised his head. The walls swam round him: in spite of the coldness of the night and the fact that the room was unheated, he was clammy with perspiration. The skin of his face, too, had a peculiar, drawn feeling, as if it were a mask that was too tight for it. He shivered. Then his eye fell on the letter lying open on the table. Without a moment’s hesitation, without waiting even to put the lamp out, he seized it, and went headlong from the house.

But he was strangely unequal to exertion. He felt a craving for stimulant, and entering a wine-shop, drank a couple of cognacs. His strength came back to him; people moved out of his way; he had energy enough to climb the stair, and to go through the business of unlocking the door.

At his abrupt entrance, Louise concealed something in a drawer, and turned the key on it. But Maurice was too self-absorbed to heed her action, or consciously to hear her exclamation at his haggard appearance. He shut the door, crossed to where she was standing, and, without speaking, pulled her nearer to the lamp. By its light, he scanned her face with a desperate eagerness.

“What is it? What’s the matter?”

At the sound of her voice, the tension of the past hour relaxed. He let his head fall on her shoulder, and shut his eyes, swaying as she swayed beneath his weight.

“Forgive me! . . . forgive me!”

“You’ve been drinking, I think.” But she held still under his grasp.

“Yes, I have. Louise! . . . tell me it’s a horrible mistake. Help me, you MUST help me!”

“How can I help you, if you won’t tell me what the matter is?” She believed him to be half drunk, and spoke as to a drunken person, without meaning much.

“Yes, yes . . . I will. Only give me time.”

But he postponed beginning. Leaning more heavily on her, he pressed his lips to the stuff of her dress. He would have liked to sleep, just where he was; indeed, he was invaded by the desire to sleep, never again to unclose his eyes. But she grew restless, and tried to draw her shoulder away. Then he looked at her, and a feverish stream of words, half self-recriminative, half in self-defence, burst from his lips. But they had little to do with the matter in hand, and were incomprehensible to her. “It has been a terrible nightmare. And only you can drive it away.” As he spoke, he looked, with a sudden suspicion, right into her eyes. But they neither faltered nor grew uneasy.

“It will turn out to be nothing, I know,” she said coldly. “You’re always devising some new way of tormenting me.”

Her words roused him. Fumbling in his pocket, he drew from it Krafft’s letter. “Is that nothing? Read it and tell me. I found it at home on my table.”

Louise took it with unmoved indifference. But directly she saw whose handwriting it was, her face grew grave and attentive. She looked back from the envelope to him, to see what he was thinking, to learn how much he knew. In spite of his roughness there was a hungry, imploring look in his eyes, an appeal to her to put him out of misery, and in the way he desired. And, as always, before such a look, her own face hardened.

“Read it! What he dares to write to me!”

Slowly, as if it were impossible for her to hurry, she drew the sheet from the crumpled envelope and smoothed it out. As she did so, she half turned away. But not so far that he could not see the dark, disfiguring blood stain her neck and blotch her cheek—even her ear grew crimson. She read deliberately, lingering over each word, but the instant she had finished, she crushed the paper to a ball, and threw it to the other end of the room.

“The scoundrel!” she cried. “Oh, the scoundrel!” Clenching her two hands, she pressed them to her face.

Maurice did not say a word; he hardly dared to draw breath, for fear some sign of her guilt might escape him. Leaning against the table, he marked each tell-tale quiver of lip or eyelid.

“The blackguard!” she cried again, shaken by rage. “If I had him here, I’d strangle him with my own hands!”

He gloated over her anger. “Yes,” he said in a low voice. “I, too . . . could kill him.”

There was a pause, in which each followed out a possible means of revenge.

“Now you see,” he said. “When I got home—when I found that—I thought I should go mad.”

Reminded thus, of his share in the matter, Louise turned her head, and considered him. Her face was tense.

“Forgive me!” said Maurice, and held out his hands to her.

She gave him another look of the same kind. “I forgive YOU. What for?”

“Because . . . since I got it, I’ve been thinking vile things.”

“Oh, that!” She moved away, and gave a curt laugh, which met him like a stab. But she had no consideration for him: she had only room in her mind for Krafft’s treachery. “I could kill him,” she said again. “Don’t. . . . Leave me alone!”—this to Maurice, who was trying to take her hand. “Don’t touch me!”

“Not touch you!—why not?” In an instant his softness passed over into suspicion: it was like a dry pile that had waited for the match. “I not touch you?” he repeated. “Do you want to make me believe that what he says there is true?”

“Believe what you like.”

“But that’s just what I won’t do. Turn here! Look me in the face! Now tell me it’s a lie.”

She struggled to free her hands. “You hurt me, Maurice! Let me go!”

“Be careful!—or I shall hurt you more than this. Now answer me!”

“You!—with your ridiculous heroics! Be careful yourself!”

His grip of her grew tighter.

“For your precious peace of mind then—that you may not be kept in suspense: what Heinz says there is—true!”

He did not at once grasp what she meant. He stood staring stupidly at her, still clutching her hands. With a determined effort, Louise wrenched them away.

“Don’t you hear what I say? It’s true—all true—every word of it!”

At the cruel repetition, he went pale, and after that, seemed to go on growing paler, until his face was like a sheet of paper. A horrible silence ensued; neither dared to let go of the other’s eyes.

“My God!” he said at last. “My God!”

He sat down at the table, and buried his face in his arms. Louise did not move; she stood waiting, her hands, which were red and sore, pressed against her sides. And as minutes passed, and he did not stir, she began in a vacant way to count the ticks of the clock. If he did not speak soon, did not go on with what had to come, and get it over, she would be forced to scream. A scream was mounting in her throat.

“When was it? . . . How? . . . Why?”

She made no answer.

He straightened himself, holding on to the table. “And if that letter hadn’t come, you wouldn’t have told me?”

Again she did not reply. He sprang to his feet, interpreting her inability to bring forth a sound as mere contemptuous defiance.

“WHY did you tell me? Did I need to know?” he cried, loudly, and, in the confines of the room, ‘ his voice had the force of a shout. As she still remained dumb, he leaned across the table and actually shouted at her. “Any more?—are there any more? He won’t have been the only one. Tell me, I say! Good God! Don’t you hear me?” The arteries in his temples were beating like two separate hearts. As nothing he said would make her open her lips, he snatched up her hands again, and dragged her a few steps forward—this, to prove to himself that he had at least bodily power over her. “How dare you stand there and say it’s true! You brazen, shameless——!”

She thought he was going to strike her, and moved her head quickly to one side. The movement did not escape him; he was amazed at it, and horrified by it. “You’re afraid of me, are you? You expect to be beaten, when you make a confession of that sort?” And as she kept her head bent, in suspense, he shouted: “Very well, you shall have something to be afraid of . . . you—!” and lifting his hand, he struck her a blow on the shoulder. It was given with force, and she sank to the floor, where she lay in a heap, screening her face with her arm. The first taste of his greater strength was like the flavour of blood to a beast of prey. In her mind, she might defy him, physically he was her master; and he struck her, again and again. But he did not wring any sound from her. She lay face downwards, and let the blows fall.

When his first onslaught of rage had spent itself, a glimmering of reason returned to him. He staggered to his feet, and looked down with horror at the prostrate figure. “My God, what am I doing?—what have I done?” A sudden fear swept through him that he had killed her.

But now, for the first time, she spoke. “It’s true!” he heard her say.

At these words, the desire actually to kill her was so overwhelming that he rnoved precipitately away, and, in order not to see her, pressed his smarting hand to his eyes. But in the greater clearness of thought this shutting off of externals brought with it, the ultimate meaning of what she had done was revealed to him; he saw red through his closed lids, and, going back to her, he struck her anew. The knowledge that, under her dressing-gown, she had nothing on but a thin nightgown, gave him pleasure; he felt each of the blows fall full and hard on her firm flesh.

From time to time, she turned her face to cry: “It’s true . . . it is true!” deliberately inciting him to continue.

But the moment came when his arm sank powerless to his side, when, if his life had depended on it, he could not have struck another blow. With difficulty, he rose to his feet; and such was the apathy that came over him, that it was all he could do to drag himself to the sofa. Once there, he leaned back and closed his eyes.

For half an hour or more, neither of them stirred. Then, when she understood that he had done, that he was not coming back to her, Louise pulled herself into a sitting position, and from there to her feet. She could hardly stand; her head swam; not an inch of her body but ached and stung. Her exaltation had left her now; she began to feel sick, and, going over to the bed, she fell heavily upon it.

Maurice heard her movements; but so incapable did he feel of further effort that lie remained sitting, with his eyes shut. A new sound roused him: she was shivering, and with such violence that the bedstead was shaken. After a crucial struggle with himself, he rose, and crossed the room. She was lying outside the bedclothes. He pulled off an eider-down quilt, and spread it over her. As he did this, his arms were round her, all the beloved body was in his grasp. When he had finished, he did not remove them, but, kneeling down beside the bed, pressed his face to the quilt, and to the warm body below.

And so the night wore away.

XI.


Throughout February, and the greater part of March, the HAUPTPRUFUNGEN were held in the Conservatorium: twice a week, from six to eight o’clock in the evening, the concert hall was crammed with an eager crowd. To these concerts, the outside public was admitted, the critics were invited, and the performances received notices in the newspapers; in short, the outgoing student was, for the first time, treated like a real debutant. Concerted music was accompanied by the full orchestra; the large gallery that ran round the hall was opened up; and the girls, whose eager faces hung over its edge, were more brightly decked than usual, in ribbons and laces. Some of those who stepped down the platform seemed thoroughly to relish their first taste of publicity; others, on the contrary, were awkward and abashed, and did not venture to notice the encouragement that greeted their entrance. There were players as composed as the most hardened virtuosi; others, again, who were overcome by stage-fright to such an extent that they barely escaped a total fiasco.

The success of the year was Dove, in his performance of Chopin’s Concerto in E minor. Dove’s unshakable self-possession was here of immense value to him. Not a note was missed, not a turn slurred; the runs and brilliant passage-work of the concerto left his fingers like showers of pearls; his touch had the necessary delicacy, and, in addition to this, his reading was quite a revelation to his friends in the matter of TEMPERAMENT. It is true that Schwarz prohibited any undignified display of the emotional side of Chopin; the interpretation had to be on classical lines; but even the most determined opponents of Schwarz’s method were forced to acknowledge that Dove made no mean show of the poetic contents of the music. The master himself, in his imperturbable way—he chose to act as if, all along, he had had this surprise for people up his sleeve—the master was in transports. His stern face wore an almost genial expression; he smiled, and talked loudly, and, when the performance was over, hurried to and fro, full of importance, shaking hands and accepting congratulations, with a fine shade of reserve. Dove’s fellow-pupils were enraptured for Schwarz’s sake; for, undeniably, the master’s numbers this year were poor, compared with those of other teachers. It behoved the remainder to make the most of this isolated triumph; they did so, and were entertained by Schwarz at a special dinner, where many healths were drunk.

Those who had “made their PRUFUNG,” as the phrase ran, were, as a rule, glad to leave Leipzig when the ordeal was behind them. But Dove, who, on the day following his performance, when his name was to be read in the newspapers accompanied by various epithets of praise, had proposed and been accepted, and was this time returning to England a solemnly engaged man—Dove waited a week for his fiancee and her family, who had not been prepared for so sudden a move. He was the man of the hour. As a response to the flattering notices, he had called on all his critics, and been received by several; and he could hardly walk a street-length, without running the gauntlet of some belated congratulation. Schwarz had spoken seriously to him about prosecuting his studies for a further year, with the not impossible prospect of a performance in the Gewandhaus at the end of it; but Dove had laid before his master the reasons why this could not be: he was no longer a free man; there were now other wishes to be consulted in addition to his own. Besides, if the truth must be told, Dove had higher aims, and these led him imperatively back to England.

Madeleine was ready to leave a couple of days after her last performance. Her plans for the future were fixed and sure. She had long ago given up making adventurous schemes for storming America: that had merely been her contribution to the romance of the place. Now she was hastening away to spend the month of March in Paris; she was not due at the school to which she was returning till the end of April; and, in Paris, she intended to take a brief course of finishing lessons, to rub off what she called “German thoroughness.” She, too, had made a highly successful exit, though without creating a furore like Dove. Since all she did was well done, it was not possible for her to be a surprise to anyone.

And finally, the rush she had lived in for weeks past, was over, the last afternoon had come, and, in its course, she went to the railway station to make arrangements about her luggage. On her way home, she entered Klemm’s music-shop, where she stood, for a considerable time, taking leave of one and another. When she emerged again, the town had assumed that spectral look, which, towards evening, made the quaint old gabled streets so attractive.

For the first time, Madeleine felt something akin to regret at having to leave. She had enjoyed, and made the most of, her years of study; but she was now quite ready to advance, curious to attack the future, and to dominate that also. Still, the dusk on the familiar streets inclined her to feel sentimental. “This time tomorrow, I’ll be hundreds of miles away,” she said to herself, “and probably shall never see the old place again.” As she walked, she looked back upon her residence there—already somewhat in the light of a remembrance—weighing what it had been worth to her. Part of it was intimately associated with Maurice Guest, and thus she recalled him, too. Of late he had passed out of her life; she had been too busy to think of him. Now, however, that she was at the end of this period, the fancy seized her to see him again; and she took a resolution which had, perhaps, been dormant in her for some time.

“I don’t see why I shouldn’t,” she reasoned. “No one will know. And even if they do, I’m leaving, and it won’t matter.”

And so she pulled her hat further over her face, and brisked up her steps in the direction of the BRAUSTRASSE—a street which she disliked, and never entered if she could avoid it. If he had lived in a better neighbourhood, things might have gone better with him, she mused; for Madeleine was a staunch believer in the influence of surroundings, and could not, for instance, understand a person who lived in dirt and disorder having any but a dirty or disorderly mind. She went from door to door, scanning the numbers, with her head poked a little forward and to one side, like a bird’s. As she ascended the stair, she raised her skirts, and her nostrils twitched displeased.

Frau Krause held the door open by an inch, and looked at Madeleine with distrust.

“No, he’s not,” she replied. “And what’s more, I couldn’t say, if you were to pay me, when he will be.”

But Madeleine was not to be daunted by the arrogance of any landlady alive. “Why? Is he so irregular?” she asked. She had placed her foot in the opening of the door, and now, by a skilful movement, inserted herself bodily into the passage.

Frau Krause, baffled, could do no more than mumble a: “Well, if you like to wait!” and point out the room. She followed Madeleine over the threshold, drying her hands on her apron.

“Are you a friend of his, may I ask?” she inquired.

“Why? What do you want to know for? Do you think I’d be here if I weren’t?” said Madeleine, looking her up and down.

“Why I want to know?” repeated Frau Krause, and tossed her head. “Why, because I think if Herr Guest has any friends left, they ought to know how he’s going on—that’s why, Fraulein!”

“How going on?” queried Madeleine with undisturbed coolness, and looked round her for a chair.

Throwing a cautious glance over her shoulder, Frau Krause said behind her hand: “It’s my opinion there’s a woman in the case.”

“You don’t need to whisper; your opinion is an open secret,” answered Madeleine drily. “There is a woman, and there she sits, as you no doubt very well know.” As she spoke, she pointed to a photograph of Louise, which stood on the lid of the piano.

“I thought as much,” exclaimed the landlady. “I thought as much. And a bad, bold face it is, too.”

“Now explain, please, what you mean by his goings on. Is he in debt to you?” Madeleine continued her interrogatory.

“Well, I can’t just say that,” replied the woman, with what seemed a spice of regret. “He’s paid up pretty regular till now—though of course one never knows how long he’ll keep on doing it. But it goes against my heart to see a young man, who might be one’s own son, acting as he does. When he first came here, there wasn’t a decenter young man anywhere than Herr Guest—if I had a complaint, it was that he was too much of a steady-goer. I used to tell him he ought to take more heed for his health, not to mention the ears of the people that had to live with him. He sat at that piano there all the blessed day. And now there isn’t a lazier, more cantankerous fellow in the place. You can’t please him anyhow. He never gives you a civil word. He doesn’t work, he doesn’t cat, and he’s getting so thin that his clothes just hang on him.”

“Is he drinking?” interrupted Madeleine in the same matter-of-fact way, with her eye on the main points of probable offence.

“Well, I can’t just say that,” answered Frau Krause. “Not but what it mightn’t be better if he was. It’s the ones as don’t drink who are the hard ones to get on with, in my experience. Young gentlemen who like their liquor, are of the goodnatured, easy-going sort. Now I once had a young fellow here——”

“But I don’t see in the least what you’ve got to complain of!” said Madeleine. “He pays you for the room, and you no doubt have free use of it.—A very good bargain!”

She sat back and stared about her, while Frau Krause, recognising that she had met her match in this sharp-tongued young lady, curbed her temper, and launched out into the history of a former lodger.

It was. a dingy room, long and narrow, with a single window. Against the door that led into an adjoining room, stood a high-backed, uninviting sofa, with a table in front of it. Between this and the window was the writing-bureau, a flat, man-high piece of furniture, with drawers and pigeon-holes, and a broad flap that let down for writing purposes. Against the opposite wall stood the neglected piano, and, towards the door, on both sides, were huddled bed, washstand, and the iron stove. Everything was of an extreme shabbiness: the stuffing was showing through holes in the sofa, the strips of carpet were worn threadbare. A couple of photographs and a few books were ranged in line on the bureau—that was all that had been done towards giving the place a homely air. It was like a room that had never properly been lived in.

While Madeleine sat thinking this, the sound of a key was heard in the front door, and Frau. Krause, interrupted in her story, had just time to tap Madeleine on the arm, exclaim: “Here he is!” and dart out of the room. Not so promptly, however, but what Maurice saw where she came from. Madeleine heard them bandying words in the passage.

The door of the room was flung open, and Maurice, entering hotly, threw his hat on the table. He did not perceive his visitor till it was too late.

“Madeleine! You here!” he exclaimed in surprise and embarrassment. “I beg your pardon. I didn’t see you,” and he made haste to recover his hat.

“Yes, don’t faint, it’s I, Maurice.—But what’s the matter? Why are you so angry with the person? Does she pry on you?”

“Pry!” he echoed, and his colour deepened. “Pry’s not the word for it. She ransacks everything I have. I never come home but what I find she has overhauled something, though I’ve forbidden her to enter the room.”

“Why don’t you—or rather, why didn’t you move? It’s not much of a place, I’m sure.”

“Move?” he repeated, in the same tone as before, and, as he spoke, he looked incredulously at Madeleine. He had hung his coat and hat on a peg, and now came forward to the table.” Move?” he said once again, and prolonged the word as though the channel of thought it opened up was new to him.

“Good gracious, yes!—If one’s not satisfied with one’s rooms, one moves, that’s all. There’s nothing strange about it.”

He murmured that the idea had never occurred to him, and was about to draw up a chair, when his eye caught a letter that was lying on the lowered flap of the bureau. In patent agitation, and without excusing himself, he seized it and tore it open. Madeleine saw his face darken. He read the letter through twice, from beginning to end, then tore it into a dozen pieces and scattered them on the shelf.

“No bad news, I hope?”

He turned his face to her; it was still contracted. “That depends on how you look at it, Madeleine,” he said, and laughed in an unpleasant manner.

After this, he seemed to forget her again; he stood staring at the scraps of paper with a frown. For some minutes, she waited. Then she saw herself forced to recall him to the fact of her presence.

“Could you spare me a little attention now?” she asked. At her words, he jumped, and, with evident confusion, brought his wandering thoughts home. “I can’t sit here for ever you know,” she added.

“I beg your pardon.” He came up to the table, and took the chair he had previously had his hand on. “The fact is I—Can I do anything for you, Madeleine?”

“For me? Oh, dear, no!—You are surprised to find me here, no doubt! But as I’m leaving to-morrow morning, I thought I’d run up and say good-bye to you—that’s all. A case of Mohammed and the mountain, you see.”

“Leaving? To-morrow?”

“Yes.—Goodness, there’s nothing wonderful in that, is there? Most people do leave some time or other, you know.” His reply was inaudible. “It was very good of you to look me up,” he threw in as an afterthought.

Madeleine, watching him, with a thin, sarcastic smile on her lips, had chanced to let her eyes stray to his hands, which he had laid on the table, and she continued to fix them, fascinated in spite of herself by the uncared-for condition of the nails. These were bitten, and broken, and dirty. Maurice, becoming aware of her intent gaze, looked down to see what it was at, hastily withdrew his hands ‘ and hid them in his pockets.

“This is the first time I’ve been in your den, you know,” she said abruptly. “Really, Maurice, you might have done better. I don’t know how you’ve managed to put up with it so long.”

“My dear Madeleine, do you think I could afford to live in a palace?”

“A palace?—absurd! You probably pay sixteen or seventeen marks for this hole. Well, I could have found you any number of better places for the same money—if you had come to me.”

“You’re very kind. But it has done me well enough.”

“So it appears.”

Sitting back, she looked round her, in the hope of picking up some neutral subject. “Are those your people?” she asked, and nodded at the photograph of a family-group, which stood on the top shelf of the bureau. “Three boys, are you not? You are like your mother,” and she stared, with unfeigned curiosity, at the provincial figures, dressed out in their best coats and silks, and in heavy gold jewellery.

“Good God, Madeleine!” Maurice burst out at this, his loosely kept patience escaping him. “You didn’t come here, I suppose, to remark on my family?”

“Well, I can’t congratulate you on an improvement in your manners, since I saw you last.”

“I am not aware of having changed.”

“As well for you, perhaps. However, I’ll tell you about myself, if it interests you.” She turned her cool, judicial gaze on him again; and now she set before him her projects for the future. But though he kept his eyes fastened on her face, she saw that he was not listening to what she said, or, at most, that he only half heard it; for, when she ceased to speak, he did not notice her silence.

She waited, curious to see what would come next, and presently he echoed, in his vague way: “Paris, did you say?—Really?”

“Yes—Paris: the capital of France.—I said that, and a good deal more, which I don’t think you heard.—And now I won’t take up your precious time any longer.—You’ve nothing new to tell me, I suppose? You still intend staying on here, and fighting out the problem of existence? Well, when you have starved satisfactorily in a garret, I hope some one will let me know. I’ll come over for the funeral.”

She rose, and began to button her jacket.

“And England has absolutely no chance? English music must continue to languish, without hope of reform?”

“How can you remember such rot! I was a terrible fool when I talked like that.”

“I liked you better as a fool than I do now, with your acquired wisdom. And I won’t go from here without offering you congratulations, hearty congratulations, on the muddle you’ve made of things.”

“That’s entirely my own affair.”

“You may be thankful it is! Do you think anyone else would want the responsibility of it?”

She went out without a further word. But on the landing at the bottom of the first flight of stairs, she stood irresolute. She felt annoyed with herself that she had allowed an unfriendly tone to dominate their brief interview. This was probably the last time she would see him; the last chance she would have of telling him just what she thought of him. And viewed in that light, it seemed ridiculous to let any artificial delicacy of feeling stand in her way. She blew her nose vigorously, and, not being used to indecision, turned as she did so, and began to ascend the stairs again. Brushing past Frau Krause, she reopened, without knocking, the door of Maurice’s room.

He had moved the lamp from the table to the bureau, and at her entrance was bending over something that lay there, so engrossed that he did not at once raise his head.

“Good gracious! What are you doing?” escaped her involuntarily.

At this, he spun round, and, leaning back against the writingtable, tried to screen it from her eyes.

She regretted her impulsive curiosity, and did not press him. “Yes, it’s me again,” she said with determination. “And I suppose you’ll want to accuse me of prying, too, like that female outside.—Look here: it’s ludicrous for us who have been friends so long to part in this fashion. And I, for one, don’t intend to do it. There’s something I want to say before I go—you may be angry and offended if you like; I don’t care”—for he frowned forbiddingly. “I’m no denser than other people; and I know just as well as every one else the wretched mess you’ve got yourself into—one would have to be blind and deaf, indeed, not to know.—Now, look here, Maurice! You once said to me, you may remember, that if you had a sister you’d like her to be something like me. Will you look on me as that sister for a little, and let me give you some sound advice? I told you I was going to Paris, and that I had a clear month there. Well, now, throw your things together and come with me. You haven’t had a decent holiday since you’ve been here. You need freshening up.—Or if not Paris—Paris isn’t a necessity—we’ll go down by Munich and the Brenner to Italy, and I’ll be cicerone. I’ll act as banker, too, and you can regard it as a loan in the meantime, and pay me back when you’re richer.—Now what do you say? Doesn’t the plan tempt you?”

“What I say?” he echoed, and looked round him a little helplessly. “Why, Madeleine . . . It seems you are determined to run off with me. Once it was America, and now it’s Italy or Paris.”

“Come, say you’ll consent, or at least consider it.”

“My dear Madeleine! You’re all that is good and kind. But you know you’re only talking nonsense.”

She did not answer him at once. “The thing is this,” she said with some hesitation. “I wasn’t quite honest in what I said to you a few minutes ago. I have the uncomfortable feeling that I am to a certain degree responsible, even to blame, for much of . . . what has happened here. And it isn’t a pleasant feeling, Maurice.”

“My dear girl!” he said again. “If it’s any consolation to you to know it, I owe you the biggest debt of my life.”

“Then you decline my proposal, do you?”

“You’re the same good friend you always were. But you’re making a mountain out of a molehill. What’s all this fuss about? Merely because I haven’t chosen to work my fingers to the bone, and wear my nerves to tatters over that old farce of a PRUFUNG. As for my choosing to stay here, instead of going home like the rest of you—well, that’s a matter of taste, too. Some people—like our friend Dove—want affluence, and a fixed position in the provinces. Frankly, I don’t. I’d rather scrape along here, as best I can. That’s the whole matter in a nutshell, and it’s nothing to make a to-do about. For though you think I’m a fool, and can’t help telling me so—that, too, is a matter of opinion.”

“Well, I don’t intend to apologise for myself at this date, be sure of that! And now I’ll go. For if you’re resolved to hold me at arm’s length, there’s nothing more to be said.—No, stop a minute, though. Here’s my address in England. If ever you should return to join us benighted ignorants, you might let me know. Or if you find you can’t get on here—I mean if it’s quite impossible—I have money, you know . . . and should be glad—at a proper percentage, of course,” she added ironically.

“That’s hardly likely to happen.”

She laid the card on the table. “You never can tell.—Well, good-bye, then, and in spite of your obstinacy, I’ll perhaps be able to do you a good turn yet, Maurice Guest.”

As soon as he heard the front door close, he returned to his occupation of piecing together the bits of the letter. Ever since he had torn it up—throughout her visit—his brain had been struggling to recall its exact contents, and without success; for, owing to Madeleine’s presence, he had read it hastily. Otherwise, what he had done to-day did not differ from his usual method of proceeding. This was not the first horrible unsigned letter he had received, and he could never prevail on himself to throw them in the fire, unopened. He read them through, two or three times, then, angered by their contents and by his own weakness, tore them to fragments. But the hints and aspersions they contained, remained imprinted on his mind. In this case, Madeleine’s distracting appearance had enfeebled his memory, and he worked long and patiently until the sheet lay fitted together again before him. When he knew its contents by heart, he struck some matches, and watched the pieces curl and blacken.

Then he left the house.

Her room was in darkness. He stretched himself on the sofa to wait for her return.

The words of the letter danced like a writing of fire before him; he lay there and re-read them; but without anger. What they stated might be true, also it might not; he would never know. For these letters, which he was ashamed of himself for opening, and still more for remembering, had not been mentioned between them, but were added to that category of things they now tacitly agreed to avoid. In his heart, he knew that he cherished the present state of uncertainty; it was a twilight state, without crudities or sharp outlines; and it was still possible to drift and dream in it. Whereas if another terrible certainty, like the last, descended on him, he would be forced to marshal his energies, and to suffer afresh. It was better not to know. As long as definite knowledge failed him, he could give her the benefit of the doubt. And whether what the letters affirmed was true or not, hours came when she still belonged wholly to him. Whatever happened on her absences from him, as soon as the four walls of the room shut them in again, she was his; and each time she returned, a burning gratitude for the reprieve filled him anew.

But there was also another reason why he did not breathe a word to her of his suspicions, and that was the slow dread that was laming him—the dread of her contempt. She made no further attempt to drape it; and he had learned to writhe before it, to cringe and go softly. Weeks had passed now, since the night on which he had made his last stand against herweeks of increasing torture. Just at first, incredible as it had seemed, his horrible treatment of her had brought about a slackening of the tension between them. The worst that could happen had happened, and he had survived it: he had not put an end either to himself or to her. On the contrary, he had accepted the fact—as he now saw that he would accept every fact concerning her, whether for good or evil. And matters having reached this point, a kind of lull ensued: for a few days they had even caught a glimpse again of the old happiness. But the pause was short-lived: it was like the ripples caused by a stone thrown into water, which continue just so long as the impetus lasts. Louise had been a little awed by his greater strength, when she had lain cowering on the ground before him. But not many days elapsed before her eyes were wide open with incredulous amazement. When she understood, as she soon did, that her shameless admission, and still more, his punishment of her for it, was not to be followed up by any new development; that, in place of subduing her mentally as well, he was going to be content to live on as they had been doing; that, in fact, he had already dropped back into the old state of things, before she was well aware of what was happening: then her passing mood of submission swept over into her old flamboyant contempt for him. The fact of his having beaten her became a weapon in her hands; and she used it unsparingly. To her taunts, he had no answer to make. For, the madness once passed, he could not conceive how he had been capable of such a thing; in his sane moments of dejection and self-distrust, he could not have raised his hand against her, though his life were at stake.

He had never been able to drag from her a single one of the reasons that had led to her mad betrayal of him. On this point she was inflexible. In the course of that long night which he had spent on his knees by her bed, he had persecuted her to disclose her motive. But he might as well have spoken to the wind; his questioning elicited no reply.. Again and again, he had upbraided her: “But you didn’t care for Heinz! He was nothing to you!” and she neither assented nor gainsaid him. Once, however, she had broken in on him: “You believed bad of me long before there was any to believe. Now you have something to go on!” And still again, when the sluggish dawn was creeping in, she had suddenly turned her head: “But now you can go away. You’re free to leave me. Nothing binds you to a woman like me—who can’t be content with one man.” Dizzy with fatigue, he had answered: “No—if you think that—if you did it just to be rid of me—you’re mistaken!”

From this night on, they had never reverted to the subject again—which is not to say that his brain did not work furiously at it; the search for a clue, for the hidden motive, was now his eternal occupation. But to her he was silent, sheerly from the dread of again receiving the answer: take me as I am, or leave me! In hours such as the present, or in the agony of sleepless nights, these thoughts rent his brain. The question was such an involved one, and he never seemed to come any nearer a solution of it. Sometimes, he was actually tempted to believe what her words implied: that it had been wilfully done, with a view to getting rid of him. But against this, his reason protested; for, if the letter from Krafft had not arrived, he would have known nothing. He did not believe she would have told him—would there, indeed, have been any need for her to do so? Nothing was changed between them; she lived at his side, just as before; and Krafft was out of the way.—At other times, though, he asked himself if he were not a fool to be surprised at what had occurred. Had not all roads led here? Had he not, as she most truly said, for long harboured the unworthiest suspicions of her?—suspicions which were tantamount to an admission on his part that his love was no longer enough for her. To have done this, and afterwards to behave as if she had been guilty of an unpardonable crime, was illogical and unjust.—And yet again, there came moments when, in a barbarous clearness of vision, he seemed to get nearest to the truth. Under certain circumstances, so he now told himself, he would gladly and straightway have forgiven her. If she had been drawn, irresistibly, to another, by one of those sudden outbursts of passion before which she was incapable of remaining steadfast; if she had been attracted, like this, more than half unwilling, wholly humiliated, penitent in advance, yet powerless—then, oh then, how willingly he would have made allowance for her weakness! But Krafft, of all people!—Krafft, of whom she had spoken to him with derisive contempt!—this cold and calculated deception of him with some one who made not the least appeal to her!—Cold and calculated, did he say? No, far from it! What COULD it have been but the sensual caprice of a moment?—but a fleeting, manlike desire for the piquancy of change?

These and similar thoughts ran their whirling circles behind his closed eyes, as he lay in the waning twilight of the March evening, which still struggled with the light of the lamp. But they were hard pressed by the contents of the letter: on this night he foresaw that his fixed idea threatened to divide up into two branches—and he did not know whether to be glad or to regret it. But he admitted to himself that one of these days he would be forced to take measures for preserving his sanity, by somehow dragging the truth from her; better still, by following her on one of her evening absences, to discover for himself where she went, and whether what the anonymous writer asserted was true. If he could only have controlled his brain! The perpetually repeated circles it drove in—if these could once have been brought to a stop, all the rest of him infinitely preferred not to know.

Meanwhile, the shadows deepened, and his subconsciousness never ceased to listen, with an intentness which no whirligigs of thought could distract, for the sound of her step in the passage. When, at length, some short time after darkness had set in, he heard her at the door, he drew a long, sighing breath of relief, as if—though this was unavowed even to himself—he had been afraid he might listen in vain. And, as always, when the suspense was over, and she was under the same roof with him again, he was freed from so intolerable a weight that he was ready to endure whatever she might choose to put upon him, and for his part to make no demands.

Louise entered languidly; and so skilled had he grown at interpreting her moods that he knew from her very walk which of them she was in. He looked surreptitiously at her, and saw that she was wan and tired. It had been a mild, enervating day; her hair was blown rough about her face. He watched her before the mirror take off hat and veil, with slow, yet impatient fingers; watched her hands in her hair, which she did not trouble to rearrange, but only smoothed back on either side.

She had not, even in entering, cast a glance at him, and, recognising the rasped state of her nerves, he had the intent to be cautious. But his resolutions, however good, were not long proof against her over-emphasised neglect of his ‘presence. Her wilful preoccupation with herself, and with inanimate objects, exasperated him. Everything was of more worth to her than he was’ and she delighted to show it.

“Haven’t you a word for me? Don’t you see I’m here?” he asked at length.

Even now she did not look towards him as she answered:

“Of course, I see you. But shall I speak next to the furniture of the room?”

“So!—That’s what I am, is it?—A piece of your furniture!”

“Yes.—No, worse. Furniture is silent.”

She was changing her walking-dress for the dressing-gown. This done, she dabbed powder on her face out of a small oval glass pot—a habit of hers to which he had never grown accustomed.

“Stop putting that stuff on your face! You know I hate it.”

Her only answer was to dab anew, and so thickly that the powder was strewn over the front of her dress and the floor. The clothes she had taken off were flung on a chair; as she brushed past them, they fell to the ground. She did not stoop to pick them up, but pushed them out of the way with her foot. Sitting down in the rocking-chair, she closed her eyes, and spread her arms out along the arms of the chair.

He could not see her from where he lay, but she was within reach of him, and, after a brief, unhappy silence, he put out his hand and drew the chair towards him, urging it forward, inch by inch, until it was beside the sofa. Then he pulled her head down, so that it also lay on the cushion, and he could feel her hair against his.

“How you hate me!” he said in a low voice, and as though he were speaking to himself. Laying her hand on his forehead, he made of it a screen for his eyes. “Who could have foreseen this!” he said again, in the same toneless way.

Louise lay still, and did not speak.

“Why do you stay with me?” he went on, looking out from under her hand. “I often ask myself that. For you’re free to come and go as you choose.”

Her eyes opened at this, though he did not see it. “And I choose to stay here! How often am I to tell you that? Why do you come back on it to-night? I’m tired—tired.”

“I know you are. I saw it as soon as you came in. It’s been a tiring day, and you probably . . . walked too far.”

With a jerk, she drew her hand out of his, and sat upright in her chair. Something, a mere tone, the slight pause, in his apparently harmless words, incensed her. “Too far, did I?—Oh, to-night at least, be honest! Why don’t you ask me straight out where I have been?—and what I have done? Can’t you, for once, be man enough to put an open question?”

“Nothing was further from my mind than to make implications. It’s you who’re so suspicious. Just as if you had a bad conscience—something really to conceal.”

“Take care!—or I shall tell you—where I’ve been! And you might regret it.”

“No. For God’s sake!—no more confessions!”

She laughed, and lay back. But a moment later, she cried out: “Why don’t you go away yourself? You know I loathe the sight of you; and yet you stick on here like like a leech. Go away, oh, why can’t you go away!”

“To-day, I might have taken you at your word.”

At the mention of Madeleine’s name, she pricked up her ears. “Oho!” she said, when lie had finished his story. “So Madeleine pays you visits, does she?—the sainted Madeleine! You have her there, and me here.—A pretty state of things!”

“Hold your tongue! I’m not in the mood to-night to stand your gibes.”

“But I’m in the mood to make them. And how is one to help it when one hears that that ineffable creature is no better than she ought to be?”

“Hold your tongue!” he cried again. “How dare you speak like that of the girl who has been such a good friend to me!”

“Friend!” she echoed. “What fools men are! She’s in love with you, that’s all, and always has been. But you were never man enough to know what it was she wanted—your friend!”

“Ah, you——!” The nervous strain of the afternoon reached its climax. “You! Yes!—that’s you all over! In your eyes nothing is good or pure. And you make everything you touch dirty. You’re not fit to take a decent woman’s name on your lips!”

She sprang up from her chair. “And that’s my thanks!—for all I’ve done—all I’ve sacrificed for you! I’m not fit to take a decent woman’s name on my lips! For shame, for shame! For who has made me what I am but you! Oh, what a fool I was, ever to let you cross this door! You!—a man who is content with other men’s leavings!”

“It was the worst day’s work you ever did in your life. Everything bad has come from that.—Why couldn’t you have held back, and refused me? We might still have been decent, happy creatures, if you hadn’t let your vile nature get the better of you. You wouldn’t marry me—no, no! You prefer to take your pleasure in other ways.—A man at any cost, Madeleine said once, and God knows, I believe it was true!”

She struck him in the face. “Oh, you miserable scoundrel! You!—who never looked at me but with the one thought in your head! Oh, it’s too much! Never, never while I live I would rather die first.—shall you ever touch me again!”

She continued to weep, long after he had left her. Still crying, her handkerchief pressed to her eyes, her body shaken by her sobs, she moved blindly about the room, opening drawers and cupboards, and heaping up their contents on the bed. There was a limit to everything; she could bear her life with him no longer; and, with nerveless fingers, she strove to collect and pack her belongings, preparatory to going away.

XII.


Easter fell early, and the Ninth Symphony had been performed in the Gewandhaus before March was fairly out. Now, both Conservatorium and Gewandhaus were closed, and the familiar haunts were empty.

Hitherto, Maurice had made shift to preserve appearances: at intervals, not too conspicuously far apart, he had gone backwards and forwards to his classes, keeping his head above water with a minimum of work. Now, however, there was no further need for deceiving people. Most of those who had been his fellow-students had left Leipzig; he could not put his finger on a single person remaining with whom he had had a nearer acquaintance. No one was left to comment on what he did and how he lived. And this knowledge withdrew the last prop from his sense of propriety. He ceased to face the trouble that care for his person implied, just as he gave up raising the lid of the piano and making a needless pretence of work. Openly now, he took up his abode in the BRUDERSTRASSE, where he spent the long, idle days stretched on the sofa, rolling cigarettes—in far greater numbers than he could smoke, and vacantly, yet with a kind of gusto, as if his fingers, so long accustomed to violent exercise, had a relish for the task. He was seldom free from headache; an iron ring, which it was impossible to loosen, bound his forehead. His disinclination to speech grew upon him, too; not only had he no thoughts that it was worth breaking the silence to express; the effort demanded by the forming of words was too great for him. His feeling of indifference-stupefying indifference—grew so strong that sometimes he felt it beyond his strength consciously to take in the shape of the objects about the room.

The days were eventless. He lay and watched her movements, which were spiritless and hurried, by turns, but now seldom marked by the gracious impulsiveness that had made up so large a part of her charm. He was content to live from hour to hour at her side; for that this was his last respite, he well knew. And the further the month advanced, the more tenaciously he clung. The one thought which now had force to rouse him was, that the day would come on which he would see her face for the last time. The fact that she had given herself to another, while yet belonging to him, ceased to affect him displeasurably, as did also his fixed idea that she was, at the present moment, deceiving him anew. His sole obsession was now a fear of the inevitable end. And it was this fear which, at rare intervals, broke the taciturn dejection in which he was sunk, by giving rise to appalling fits of violence. But after a scene of this kind, he would half suffocate her with remorse. And this, perhaps, worked destruction most surely of all: the knowledge that, despite the ungovernable aversion she felt for him, she could still tolerate his endearments. Not once, as long as they had been together, had she refused to be caressed.

But the impossibility of the life they were leading broke over Louise at times, with the shock of an ice-cold wave.

“If you have any feeling left in you—if you have ever cared for me in the least—go away now!” she wept. “Go to the ends of the earth—only leave me!”

He was giddy with headache that day. “To whom? Who is it you want now?”

One afternoon as he lay there, the landlady came in with a telegram for him, which she said had been brought round by one of Frau Krause’s children—she tossed it on the table, as she spoke, to express the contempt she felt for him. Several minutes elapsed before he put out his hand for it, and then he did so, because it required less energy to open it than to leave it unopened. When he had read it, he gave a short laugh, and threw it back on the table. Louise, who was in the other part of the room, came out, half-dressed, to see what the matter was. She, tool laughed at its contents in her insolent way, and, on passing the writing-table, pulled open the drawer where she kept her money.

“There’s enough for two. And you’re no prouder in this, I suppose, than in anything else.”

The peremptory summons home, and the announcement that no further allowance would be remitted, was not a surprise to him; he had known all along that, sooner or later, he would be thrown on his own resources. It had happened a little earlier than he had expected—that was all. A week had still to run till the end of the month.—That night, however, when Louise was out, he meditated, in a desultory fashion, over the likely and unlikely occupations to which he could turn his hand.

A few days later, she came home one evening in a different mood: for once, no cruel words crossed her lips. They sat side by side on the sofa; and of such stuff was happiness now made that he was content. Chancing to look up, he was dismayed to see that her eyes were full of tears, which, as he watched, ran over and down her cheeks. He slid to his knees, and laid his head in her lap.

She fell asleep early; for, no matter what happened, how uneventful or how tragically exciting her day was, her faculty for sleep remained unchanged. It was a brilliant night; in the sky was a great, round, yellow moon, and the room was lit up by it. The blind of the window facing the bed had not been lowered; and a square patch of light fell across the bed. He turned and looked at her, lying in it. Her face was towards him; one arm was flung up above her head; the hand lay with the palm exposed. Something in the look of the face, blanched by the unreal light, made him recall the first time he had seen it, and the impression it had then left on his mind. While she played in Schwarz’s room, she had turned and looked at him, and it had seemed to him then, that some occult force had gone out from the face, and struck home in him. And it had never lessened. Strange, that so small a thing, hardly bigger than one’s two closed fists, should be able to exert such an influence over one! For this face it was—the pale oval, in the dark setting, the exotic colouring, the heavy-lidded eyes—which held him; it was this face which drew him surely back with a vital nostalgia—a homesickness for the sight of her and the touch of her—if he were too long absent. It had not been any coincidence of temperament or sympathies—by rights, all the rights of their different natures, they had not belonged together—any more than it had been a mere blind uprush of sensual desire. And just as his feelings for her had had nothing to do with reason, or with the practical conduct of his life so they had outlasted tenderness, faithfulness, respect. What ever it was that held him, it lay deeper than these conventional ideas of virtue. The power her face had over him was undiminished, though he now found it neither beautiful nor good; though he knew the true meaning of each deeply graven line.—This then was love?—this morbid possession by a woman’s face.

He laid his arm across his tired eyes, and, without waiting to consider the question he had propounded, commenced to follow out a new train of thought. No doubt, for each individual, there existed in one other mortal some physical detail which he or she could find only in this particular person. It might be the veriest trifle. Some found it, it seemed, in the colour of an eye; some in the modulations of a voice, the curve of a lip, the shape of a hand, the lines of a body in motion. Whatever it chanced to be, it was, in most cases, an insignificant characteristic, which, for others, simply did not exist, but which, to the one affected by it, made instant appeal, and just to that corner of the soul which had hitherto suffered aimlessly for the want of it—a suffering which nothing but this intonation, this particular smile, could allay. He himself had long since learnt what it was, about her face, that made a like appeal to him. It was her eyes. Not their size, or their dark brilliancy, but the manner of their setting: the spacious lid that fell from the high, wavy eyebrow, first sloping deeply inwards, then curving out again, over the eyeball; this, and the clean sweep of the broad, white lid, which, when lowered, gave the face an infantine look—a look of marble. He knew it was this; for, on the strength of a mere hinted resemblance, he had been unable to take his eyes off the face of another woman; the likeness in this detail had met his gaze with a kind of shock. But what a meaningless thing was life, when the way a lid drooped, or an eyebrow grew on a forehead, could make such havoc of your nerves! And more especially when, in the brain or soul that lay behind, no spiritual trait answered to the physical.—Well, that was for others to puzzle over, not for him. The strong man tore himself away while there was still time, or saved himself in an engrossing pursuit. He, having had neither strength nor saving occupation, had bartered all he had, and knowingly, for the beauty of this face. And as long as it existed for him, his home was beside it.

He turned restlessly. Disturbed in her dreams, Louise flung over on her other side.

“Eugen!” she murmured. “Save me!—Here I am! Oh, don’t you see me?”

He shook her by the arm. “Wake up!”

She was startled and angry. “Won’t you even let me sleep?”

“Keep your dreams to yourself then!”

There was a savage hatred in her look. “Oh, if I only could! . . . if only my hands were strong enough!—!I’d kill you!”

“You’ve done your best.”

“Yes. And I’m glad! Remember that, afterwards. I was glad!”

It had been a radiant April morning of breeze and sunshine, but towards midday, clouds gathered, and the sunlight was constantly intercepted. Maurice had had occasion to fetch something from his lodgings and was on his way back. The streets were thronged with people: business men, shop-assistants and students, returning to work from the restaurants in which they had dined. At a corner of the ZEITZERSTRASSE, a hand-cart had been overturned, and a crowd had gathered; for, no matter how busy people were, they had time to gape and stare; and they were now as eager as children to observe this incident, in the development of which a stout policeman was wordily authoritative. Maurice found that he had loitered with the rest, to watch the gathering up of the spilt wares, and to hear the ensuing altercation between hawker and policeman. On turning to walk on again, his eye was caught and held by the tall figure of a man who was going in the same direction as he, but at a brisk pace, and several yards in front of him. This person must have passed the group round the cart. Now, intervening heads and shoulders divided them, obstructing Maurice’s view; still, signs were not wanting in him that his subliminal consciousness was beginning to recognise the man who walked ahead. There was something oddly familiar in the gait, in the droop of the shoulders, the nervous movement of the head, the aimless motion of the dangling hands and arms—briefly, in all the loosely hung body. And, besides this, the broad-brimmed felt hat . . . Good God! He stiffened, with a sudden start, and, in an instant, his entire attention was concentrated in an effort to see the colour of the hair under the hat. Was it red? He tried to strike out in lengthier steps, but the legs of the man in front were longer, and his own unruly. After a moment’s indecision, however, he mastered them, and then, so afraid was he of the other passing out of sight, that he all but ran, and kept this pace up till he was close behind the man he followed. There he fell into a walk again, but a weak and difficult walk, for his heart was leaping in his chest. He had not been mistaken. The person close before him, so close that he could almost have touched him, was no other than Schilsky—the Schilsky of old, with the insolent, short-sighted eyes, and the loose, easy walk.

Maurice followed him—followed warily and yet unreflectingly—right down the long, populous street. Sometimes blindly, too, for, when the street and all it contained swam before him, he was obliged to shut his eyes. People looked with attention at him; he caught a glimpse of himself in a barber’s mirror, and saw that his face had turned a greenish white. His mind was set on one point. Arrived at the corner where the street ran out into the KONIGSPLATZ, which turning would Schilsky take? Would he go to the right, where lay the BRUDERSTRASSE, or would he take the lower street to the left? Until this question was answered, it was impossible to decide what should be done next. But first, there came a lengthy pause: Schilsky entered a musicshop, and remained inside, leaning over the counter, for a quarter of an hour. Finally, however, the corner was reached. He appeared to hesitate: for a moment it seemed as if he were going straight on, which would mean fresh uncertainty. Then, with a sudden outward fling of the hands, he went off to the left, in the direction of the Gewandhaus.

Maurice did not follow him any further. He stood and watched, until he could no longer see the swaying head. After that he had a kind of collapse. He leaned up against the wall of a house, and wiped the perspiration from his forehead. Passers by believed him to be drunk, and were either amused, or horrified, or saddened. He discovered, in truth, that his legs were shaking as if with an ague, and, stumbling into a neighbouring wine-shop, he drank brandy—not enough to stupefy him, only to give back to his legs their missing strength.

To postpone her knowing! To hinder her from knowing at any cost!—his blurred thoughts got no further than this. He covered the ground at a mad pace, clinging fast to the belief that he would find her, as he had left her, in bed. But his first glimpse of her turned him cold. She was standing before the glass, dressed to go out. This in itself was bad enough. Worse, far worse, was it that she had put on, to-day, one of the light, thin dresses she had worn the previous spring, and never since. It was impossible to see her tricked out in this fashion, and doubt her knowledge of the damning fact. He held it for proved that she was dressed to leave him; and the sight of her, refreshed and rejuvenated, gave the last thrust to his tottering sense. He demanded with such savageness the meaning of her adornment, that the indignant amazement with which she turned on him was real, and not feigned.

“Take off that dress! You shan’t go out of the house in it!—Take it off!”

He raved, threatened, implored, always with icy fingers at his heart. He knew that she knew; he would have taken his oath on it; and he only had room in his brain for one thought: to prevent her knowing. His rage spent itself on the light, flowery dress. As nothing he said moved her, he set his foot on the skirt, and tore it down from the waist. She struck at him for this, then took another from the wardrobe—a still lighter and gaudier one. They had never yet gone through an hour such as that which followed. At its expiry, clothes and furniture lay strewn about the room.

When Louise saw that he was not to be shaken off, that, wherever she went on this day, he would go, too, she gave up any plan she might have had, and followed where he led. This was, as swiftly as possible, by the outlying road to the Connewitz woods. If he could but once get her there, they would be safe from surprise. Once out there, in solitude, among the screening trees, something, he did not yet know what, but something would—must—happen.

He dragged her relentlessly along. But until they got there! His eyes grew stiff and giddy with looking before him, behind him, on all sides. And never had she seemed to move so slowly; never had she stared so brazenly about her, as on this afternoon. With every step they took, certainty burned higher in him; the thin, fixed smile that disfigured her lips said: do your worst; do all you can; nothing will save you! He did not draw a full breath till they were far out on the SCHLEUSSIGER WEG. Then he dropped her arm, and wiped his face.

The road was heavy with mud, from rains of the preceding day. Louise, dragging at his side, was careless of it, and let her long skirt trail behind her. He called her attention to it, furiously, and this was the first time he had spoken since leaving the house. But she did not even look down: she picked out a part of the road that was still dirtier, where her feet sank and stuck.

They crossed the bridge, and joined the wood-path. On one of the first seats they came to, Louise sank exhausted. Filled with the idea of getting her into the heart of the woods, he was ahead of her, urging the pace; and he had taken a further step or two before he saw that she had remained behind. He was forced to return.

“What are you sitting there for?” He turned on her, with difficulty resisting the impulse to strike her full in her contemptuous white face.

She laughed—her terrible laugh, which made the very nerves twitch in his finger-tips. “Why does one usually sit down?”

“ONE?—You’re not one! You’re you!” Now he wished hundreds of listeners were in their neighbourhood, that the fierceness of his voice might carry to them.

“And you’re a madman!”

“Yes, treat me like the dirt under your feet! But you can’t deceive me.—Do you think I don’t know why you’re stopping here ?”

She looked away from him, without replying.

“Do you think I don’t know why you’ve decked yourself out like this?”

“For God’s sake stop harping on my dress!”

“Why you’ve bedizened yourself? . . . why you were going out? . . . why you’ve spied and gaped eternally from one side of the street to the other?”

As she only continued to look away, the desire seized him to say something so incisive that the implacability of her face would have to change, no matter to what. “I’ll tell you then!” he shouted, and struck the palm of one hand with the back of the other, so that the bones in both bit and stung. “I’ll tell you. You’re waiting here . . . waiting, I say! But you’ll wait to no purpose! For you’ve reckoned without me.”

“Oh, very well, then, if it pleases you, I’m waiting! But you can at least say for what? For you perhaps?—for you to regain your senses?”

“Stop your damned sneering! Will you tell me you don’t know who’s—don’t know he’s here?”

Still she continued to overlook him. “He?—who?—what?” She flung the little words at him like stones. Yet, in the second that elapsed before his reply, a faint presentiment widened her eyes.

“You’ve got the audacity to ask that?” Flinging himself down on the seat, he put his hands in his pockets, and stretched out his legs. “Who but your precious Schilsky!—the man who knew how you ought to be treated . . . who gave you what you deserved!”

His first feeling was one of relief: the truth was out; there was an end to the torture of the past hour. But after this one flash of sensation, he ceased to consider himself. At his words Louise turned so white that he thought she was going to faint. She raised her hand to her throat, and held it there. She tried to say something, and could not utter a sound. Her voice had left her. She turned her head and looked at him, in a strange, apprehensive way, with the eyes of a trapped animal.

“Eugen!—Eugen is here?” she said at last. “Here?—Do you know what you’re saying?” Now that her voice had come, it was a little thin whisper, like the voice of a sick person. She pushed hat and hair, both suddenly become an intolerable weight, back from her forehead.

Still he was not warned. “Will you swear to me you didn’t know?”

“I know? I swear?” Her voice was still a mere echo of itself. But now she rose, and standing at the end of the seat furthest from him, held on to the back of it. “I know?” she repeated, as if to herself. Then she drew a long breath, which quivered through her, and, with it, voice and emotion and the power of expression returned. “I know?” she cried with a startling loudness. “Good God, you fool, do you think I’d be here with you, if I had known?—if I had known!”

A foreboding of what he had done came to Maurice. “Take care!—take care what you say!”

She burst into a peal of hysterical laughter, which echoed through the woods.

“Take care!” he said again, and trembled.

“Of what?—of you, perhaps? YOU!”

“I may kill you yet.”

“Oh, such as you don’t kill!”

She lowered her veil, and stooped for her gloves. He looked up at her swift movement. There was a blueness round his lips.

“What are you going to do?”

She laughed.

“You’re . . . you’re going to him! Louise!—you are NOT going to him?”

“Oh, you poor, crazy fool, what made you tell me?”

“Stay here!” He caught her by the sleeve. But she shook his hand off as though it were a poisonous insect. “For God’s sake, think what you’re doing! Have a little mercy on me!”

“Have you ever had mercy on me?”

She took a few, quick steps away from the seat, then with an equally impulsive resolve, came back and confronted him.

“You talk to me of mercy?—you !—when nothing I could wish you would be bad enough for you?—Oh, I never thought it would be possible to hate anyone as I hate you—you mean-souled, despicable dummy of a man!—Why couldn’t you have let me alone? I didn’t care that much for you—not THAT much! But you came, with your pretence of friendship, and your flattery, and your sympathy—it was all lies, every word of it! Do you think what has happened to us would ever have happened if you’d been a different kind of man?—But you have never had a clean thought of me—never! Do you suppose I haven’t known what you were thinking and believing about me in these last weeks?—those nights when I waited night after night to see a light come back in his windows? Yes, and I let you believe it; I wanted you to; I was glad you did—glad to see you suffer. I wish you were dead!—Do you see that river? Go and throw yourself into it. I’ll stand here and watch you sink, and laugh when I see you drowning.—Oh, I hate you—hate you! I shall hate you to my last hour!”

She spat on the ground at his feet. Before he could raise his head, she was gone.

He made an involuntary, but wholly uncertain, movement to follow her, did not, however, carry it out, and sank back into his former attitude. His cold hands were deep in his pockets, his shoulders drawn up; and his face, drained of its blood, was like the face of an old man. He had made no attempt to defend himself, had sat mute, letting her vindictive words go over him, inwardly admitting their truth. Now he closed his eyes, and kept them shut, until the thudding of his heart grew less forcible. When he looked up again, his gaze met the muddy, sluggish water, into which she had dared him to throw himself. But he did not even recall her taunt. He merely sat and stared at the river, amazed at the way in which it had, as it were, detached itself from other objects. All at once it had acquired a life of its own, and it was difficult to believe that it had ever been an integral part of the landscape.

He remained sitting till the mists were breast-high. But even when, after more than one start—for his legs were stiff and numbed—he rose to go home, he did not realise what had happened to him. He was only aware that night had fallen, and that it would be better to get back in the direction of the town.

The twinkling street-lamps did more than anything towards rousing him. But they also made him long, with a sudden vehemence, for some warm, brightly lighted interior, where it would be possible to forget the night—haunted river. He sought out an obscure cafe, and entering, called for brandy. On this night, he was under no necessity to limit himself; and he sat, glowering at the table, and emptying his glass, until he had died a temporary, and charitable, death. The delicious sensation of sipping the brandy was his chief remembrance of these hours; but, also, like far-off, incorporate happenings, he was conscious, as the night deepened, of women’s shrill and lively voices. and of the pressure of a woman’s arms.