"Oh, but I do know it," Fritz answered. "If I could describe to you the contempt with which I regard my former mode of life ... everything is different ... different ... so much purer ... n.o.bler ... I'm absolutely a stoic now.... And that gives one a feeling of such peace, such serenity! And I have you to thank for it, Herr von Niebeldingk."

"I don't understand that. To teach in the _stoa_ is a new employment for me."

"Well, didn't you introduce me to that n.o.ble lady? Wasn't it you?"

"Aha," said Niebeldingk. The image of Alice, smiling a gentle reproach, arose before him.

In the midst of this silly and sordid business that had overtaken him, he had almost lost sight of her. More than a week had pa.s.sed since he had crossed her threshold.

"How is the dear lady?" he asked.

"Oh, splendid," Fritz said, "just splendid."

"Have you seen her often?"

"Certainly," Fritz replied, "we're reading Marcus Aurelius together now."

"Thank heaven," Niebeldingk laughed, "I see that she's well taken care of."

He made up his mind to see her within the next hour.

Fritz who had only come because he needed to overflow to some one with the joy of life that was in him, soon started to go.

At the door he turned and said timidly and with downcast eyes.

"I have one request to make----"

"Fire away, Fritz! How much?"

"Oh, I don't need money ... I'd like to have the address of your florist ...I'd like to send to the dear lady a bunch of the ... the Indian lilies."

"What? Are you mad?" Niebeldingk cried.

"Why do you ask that?" Fritz was hurt. "May I not also send that symbol to a lady whose purity and loftiness of soul I reverence. I suppose I'm old enough!"

"I see. You're quite right. Forgive me." Niebeldingk bit his lips and gave the lad the address.

Fritz thanked him and went.

Niebeldingk gave way to his mirth and called for his hat. He wanted to go to her at once. But--for better or worse--he changed his mind, for yonder in the gateway, unabashed, stood the knight of several honourable orders.

Chapter VII

To be sure, one can't stand eternally in a gateway. Finally the knight deserted his post and vanished into a sausage shop. The hour had come when even the most glowing pa.s.sion of revenge fades gently into a pa.s.sion for supper.

Niebeldingk who had waited behind his curtain, half-amused, half-bored--for in the silent, distinguished street where everyone knew him a scandal was to be avoided at any cost--Niebeldingk hastened to make up for his neglect at once.

The dark fell. Here and there the street-lamps flickered through the purple air of the summer dusk....

The maid who opened the door looked at him with cool astonishment as though he were half a stranger who had the audacity to pay a call at this intimate hour.

"That means a scolding," he thought.

But he was mistaken.

Smiling quietly, Alice arose from the couch where she had been sitting by the light of a shaded lamp and stretched out her hand with all her old kindliness. The absence of the otherwise inevitable book was the only change that struck him.

"We haven't seen each other for a long time," he said, making a wretched attempt at an explanation.

"Is it so long?" she asked frankly.

"Thank you for your gentle punishment." He kissed her hand. Then he chatted, more or less at random, of disagreeable business matters, of preparations for a journey, and so forth.

"So you are going away?" she asked tensely.

The word had escaped him, he scarcely knew how. Now that he had uttered it, however, he saw very clearly that nothing better remained for him to do than to carry the casual thought into action.... Here he pa.s.sed a fruitless, enervating life, slothful, restless and humiliating; at home there awaited him light, useful work, dreamless sleep, and the tonic sense of being the master.

All that, in other days, held him in Berlin, namely, this modest, clever, flexible woman had almost pa.s.sed from his life. Steady neglect had done its work. If he went now, scarcely the smallest gap would be torn into the fabric of his life.

Or did it only seem so? Was she more deeply rooted in his heart than he had ever confessed even to himself? They were both silent. She stood very near him and sought to read the answer to her question in his eyes. A kind of anxious joy appeared upon her slightly worn features.

"I'm needed at home," he said at last. "It is high time for me. If you desire I'll look after your affairs too."

"Mine? Where?"

"Well, I thought we were neighbours there--more than here. Or have you forgotten the estate?"

"Let us leave aside the matter of being neighbours," she answered, "and I don't suppose that I have much voice in the management of the estate as long as--he lives. The guardians will see to that."

"But you could run down there once in a while ... in the summer for instance. Your place is always ready for you. I saw to that."

"Ah, yes, you saw to that." The wistful irony that he had so often noted was visible again.

For the first time he understood its meaning.

"She has made things too easy for me," he reflected. "I should have felt my chains. Then, too, I would have realised what I possessed in her."

But did he not still possess her? What, after all, had changed since those days of quiet companionship? Why should he think of her as lost to him?

He could not answer this question. But he felt a dull restlessness. A sense of estrangement told him: All is not here as it was.

"Since when do you live in dreams, Alice?" he asked, surveying the empty table by which he had found her.

His question had been innocent, but it seemed to carry a sting. She blushed and looked past him.