"Let him be, Niebeldingk," she said. "As far as he is concerned he is, doubtless, in the right. And nothing would be more shameful than if society were already to begin to make a featureless model boy of him."

"That will never be, I swear to you, dear lady," cried Fritz all aglow and stretching out his hands to ward off imaginary chains.

Niebeldingk smiled and thought: "So much the better for him." Then he lit a fresh cigarette.

The conversation turned to learned things. Fritz, paraphrasing Tacitus, vented his hatred of the Latin civilisations. Alice agreed with him and quoted Mme. de Stael. Niebeldingk arose, quietly meeting the reproachful glance of his beloved.

Fritz jumped up simultaneously, but Niebeldingk laughingly pushed him back into his seat.

"You just stay," he said, "our dear friend is only too eager to slaughter a few more peoples."

Chapter V.

When he dropped in at Alice's a few days later he found her sitting, hot-cheeked and absorbed, over Strauss's _Life of Jesus_.

"Just fancy," she said, holding up her forehead for his kiss, "that young poodle of yours is making me take notice. He gives me intellectual nuts to crack. It's strange how this young generation--"

"I beg of you, Alice," he interrupted her, "you are only a very few years his senior."

"That may be so," she answered, "but the little education I have derives from another epoch.... I am, metaphysically, as unexacting as the people of your generation. A certain fogless freedom of thought seemed to me until to-day the highest point of human development."

"And Fritz von Ehrenberg, student of agriculture, has converted you to a kind of thoughtful religiosity?" he asked, smiling good-naturedly.

In her zeal she wasn't even aware of his irony.

"We're not going to give in so easily.... But it is strange what an impression is made on one by a current of strong and natural feeling.... This young fellow comes to me and says: 'There is a G.o.d, for I feel Him and I need Him. Prove the contrary if you can.' ...

Well, so I set about proving the contrary to him. But our poor negations have become so glib that one has forgotten the reasons for them. Finally he defeated me along the whole line ... so I sat down at once and began to study up ... just as one would polish rusty weapons ... Bible criticism and DuBois-Reymond and 'Force and Matter' and all the things that are traditionally irrefutable."

"And that amuses you?" he asked compa.s.sionately.

A theoretical indignation took hold of her that always amused him greatly.

"Does it amuse me? Are such things proper subjects for amus.e.m.e.nt?

Surely you must use other expressions, Richard, when one is concerned for the most sacred goods of humanity...."

"Forgive me," he said, "I didn't mean to touch those things irreverently."

She stroked his arm softly, thus dumbly asking forgiveness in her turn.

"But now," she continued, "I am equipped once more, and when he comes to-morrow--"

"So he's coming to-morrow?"

"Naturally, ... then you will see how I'll send him home sorely whipped ... I can defeat him with Kant's antinomies alone.... And when it comes to what people call 'revelation,' well! ... But I a.s.sure you, my dear one, I'm not very happy defending this icy, nagging criticism.... To be quite sincere, I would far rather be on his side.

Warmth is there and feeling and something positive to support one.

Would you like some tea?"

"Thanks, no, but some brandy."

Rapidly brushing the waves of hair from her drawn forehead she ran into the next room and returned with the bottle bearing three stars on its label from which she herself took a tiny drop occasionally--"when my mind loses tone for study" as she was wont to say in self-justification.

A crimson afterglow, reflected from the walls of the houses opposite, filled the little drawing-room in which the ma.s.s of feminine ornaments glimmered and glittered.

"I've really become quite a stranger here," he thought, regarding all these things with the curiosity of one who has come after an absence.

From each object hung, like a dewdrop, the memory of some exquisite hour.

"You look about you so," Alice said with an undertone of anxiety in her voice, "don't you like it here any longer?"

"What are you thinking of," he exclaimed, "I like it better daily."

She was about to reply but fell silent and looked into s.p.a.ce with a smile of wistful irony.

"If I except the _Life of Jesus_ and the Kantian--what do you call the things?"

"Antinomies."

"Aha--_anti_ and _nomos_--I understand--well, if I except these dusty superfluities, I may say that your furnishings are really faultless.

The quotations from Goethe are really more appropriate, although I could do without them."

"I'll have them swept out," she said in playful submission.

"You are a dear girl," he said playfully and pa.s.sed his hand caressingly over her severely combed hair.

She grasped his arm with both hands and remained motionless for a moment during which her eyes fastened themselves upon his with a strangely rigid gleam.

"What evil have I done?" he asked. "Do you remember our childhood's verse: 'I am small, my heart is pure?' Have mercy on me."

"I was only playing at pa.s.sion," she said with the old half-wistful, half-mocking smile, "in order that our relations may not lose solid ground utterly."

"What do you mean?" he asked, pretending astonishment. "And do you really think, Richard, that between us, things, being as they are--are right?"

"I can't imagine any change that could take place at present."

She hid a hot flush of shame. She was obviously of the opinion that he had interpreted her meaning in the light of a desire for marriage. All earthly possibilities had been discussed between them: this one alone had been sedulously avoided in all their conversations.

"Don't misunderstand me," he continued, determined to skirt the dangerous subject with grace and ease, "there's no question here of anything external, of any change of front with reference to the world.

It's far too late for that. ... Let us remain--if I may so put it--in our spiritual four walls. Given our characters or, I had better say, given your character I see no other relation between us that promises any permanence.... If I were to pursue you with a kind of infatuation, or you me with jealousy--it would be insupportable to us both."

She did not reply but gently rolled and unrolled the narrow, blue silk scarf of her gown.

"As it is, we live happily and at peace," he went on, "Each of us has liberty and an individual existence and yet we know how deeply rooted our hearts are in each other."

She heaved a sigh of painful oppression. "Aren't you content?" he asked,

"For heaven's sake! Surely!" Her voice was frightened, "No one could be more content than I. If only----"