The Song of Songs

CHAPTER XX

It was the evening of the next day. The carriage, which was bearing Lilly to the most dreaded interview of her life, drew up at the door of the Unter den Linden Restaurant, which had been a favourite haunt of the beaumonde for generations. Although Lilly had not been there for a long time, she knew every inch of it. She knew, too, the giant commissionaire, Albert, who stood at the entrance and laid his hand respectfully on his braided cap. It was he who of old used to apprise her of the approach of the handsome officer of Hussars. With downcast eyes and her head pressed against Konrad's shoulder, she glided past him, trusting that he no longer remembered her.

"Uncle, this is Lilly!"

An old gentleman below middle height, with bow legs, and in an ill-fitting lounge-jacket and limp collar, came swaggering out of a private room and held out to her a broad fleshy hand, the skin of which was as loose and brown as a dog-skin glove. She cast a shy, scrutinising glance at this all-powerful person, whom she had pictured as a man of commanding presence and iron will, and who, after all, was only a shaky, corpulent, rather common-looking dwarf.

Then, as she told herself that her own and Konrad's happiness depended on her conduct now and during the next hour or two, she felt the old paralysing nervousness which had not troubled her much of late years come over her. When suffering from these attacks she became as wooden as a doll, and could do nothing but smile inanely, and hardly knew how to pronounce her own name.

The old uncle, too, seemed frozen into silence at the first sight of her. He scanned her from head to foot, and from foot to head, and nearly forgot to invite her into the private room.

This room, with its gold Japanese wall-paper, its carnation silk hangings, its blue Persian rugs, and high-backed sofa, was as familiar to her as everything else in the place. Many a festive midnight hour had she caroused away here with Richard and his chance acquaintances at the time when it was still his ambition to hobnob with the crême de la crême of fast society.

An immaculately shaved waiter took her brocaded evening coat and lace scarf, and measured her as he did so with an eye that seemed to say, "Surely I must have seen you before?"

That was an agonising moment.

The old uncle, who had never ceased to regard her stealthily with awed but grim glances, pulled himself together and said:

"Well, now we are going to have a jolly time together, children ... cosy and friendly--eh? Jolly cosy."

Lilly bowed.

Her bow was a stiff enough inclination of the head, apparently, to increase the bandy-legged old gentleman's reverent esteem for her. He seemed puzzled and ill at ease, trampled restlessly about the room, toyed with the gold charms that dangled from his watch-chain, and nodded two or three times at Konrad in solemn appreciation.

Then they seated themselves at the gleaming white table, which was a mass of glittering cut-glass and flowers. Round the bronze lamp, with its claws and dainty iris stem--Lilly remembered it well--hung a festoon of lilac orchids, which must have cost an immense sum. Evidently this slovenly old rascal understood the art of good living.

Lilly saw herself reflected in a mirror as she sat in her place on the sofa, a radiant picture of composure and distinction. She had chosen a sunray pleated black Liberty silk dress with a bodice of Chantilly lace, which, despite its costliness, clung in the simplest lines gracefully about her neck and shoulders. An innocent masculine mind might easily believe that such a costume could be bought anywhere between San Francisco and St. Petersburg, or Cape Town and Christiania, for two hundred marks.

She had wisely left her jewellery at home. Only the slender gold chain, which she generally wore with a low bodice, encircled in maidenly unpretentiousness her high transparent collar.

She looked like a strictly reared young gentlewoman of quality making her first dêbut in the great world, full of shyness and curiosity.

Konrad occupied the chair on her right. The third place, nearest the door, his uncle had retained for himself.

From the moment he sat down to table he seemed to be in his element. He growled and issued orders, and found fault with everything.

"Look here, my boy," he said to the waiter as he placed the hors d'œuvres in front of him, "do you call that the correct decanter for port wine? Don't you know that if port wine doesn't sparkle in the decanter it assuages thirst?"

Intimidated by his bullying tone, the waiter was going off for another decanter, but Konrad's uncle declared he couldn't spare the time, he must have a "starter" straight away.

"I am still feeling a little stiff," he said apologetically, "I am unaccustomed to entertaining such very beautiful and at the same time stand-offish ladies."

Lilly felt a stab at her heart.

Her lover's eyes met hers with a glance full of reproach and encouragement which said: "You mustn't be so silent. You must try to be nice to him." And in the same mute language she answered humbly and deprecatingly: "I cannot; you talk for both of us."

And then he began in his anxiety to converse as if he had been paid to entertain the company. He described the antiques which his uncle had collected in his castle on the Rhine, referred to threatened American competition, passed on to Italy and the evils of the Lex Pacca--goodness only knew what topic he didn't touch on.

It was quite an illuminating little discourse, which his uncle appeared to follow with modified interest, as he squinted across at Lilly and smacked his lips while he let morsels of tunny in oil slip down his throat.

Suddenly he said, "All very well, my son. Highly instructive and proper. But I wonder if you could not be equally enlightening on the subject of what sort of whisky they provide here?"

Konrad sprang up to look for the bell, but his uncle pulled him back.

"Stop! stop! This is my private entertainment. The port wine is for you. And a beautiful woman, after all, is a beautiful woman, even when she is someone else's beautiful wife. So here's to the health of our beauty."

That sounded very like sarcasm. Was it his intention to make game of her before finally rejecting her claims?

"Permit me," he continued, "to give you my congratulations. You have worked wonders already with the boy.... He dances prettily to your piping--eh?"

Now she was bound to make some answer.

"I don't pipe and he doesn't dance," she said, with an effort. "We are neither of us light-hearted enough for that."

"Ah, that's a nasty one for me," he laughed; but his laugh sounded cross and irritable.

"Lilly meant no harm," interposed Konrad, coming to her rescue. "And certainly the time of stress that we are passing through at present is not easy. If it were not for the help she gives me daily with her understanding and kindness of heart, I am not sure that I could struggle on."

"Very good, very good," he replied; "or perhaps I should say, very pitiable. But your old uncle hasn't had as much as one pretty look or speech from her yet as a seal of our future relationship."

"Oh, that's what he wants, is it?" thought Lilly; and she raised her glass to his, and sought to mollify him with a coquettish little shamefaced smile.

It filled him with evident satisfaction. He twirled his pointed beard, and ogled her familiarly with his twinkling eyes, as if he wished to elicit a sign of secret understanding betwixt them.

"Thank God, perhaps he's not so very formidable after all!" she thought, and gave a sigh of deep relief that the ice was broken at last.

When the waiter came back, a lively discussion ensued between him and Konrad's uncle as to the brands of whisky the hotel boasted.... The debate ended in the manager of the establishment appearing on the scene, and offering to go down into the cellar himself to search for a bottle, which he thought he had somewhere, bearing the label of a certain celebrated firm, and the date of a certain famous year.

Not till this important matter was settled did the old gentleman again devote his attention to his fair future niece-in-law.

"I am an old mud-lark," he said. "I have done business in guano, train oil, Australian pitch, ship grease, and other such unclean things. So you can't wonder at my wishing to refresh myself for once in a way with an appetising object like yourself, dear ungracious lady. All I require is a little return of my interest."

"Ah well, then, I'll just be impudent," thought Lilly. And aloud she said: "You know, Herr Rennschmidt, I am sitting here trembling in my shoes like a poor, unlucky candidate for an examination! I implore you"--she raised her clasped hands towards him--"don't play cat-and-mouse with me."

Now she had struck the right note and given him the opening he desired.

"Her lips are unsealed at last!" he exclaimed, beaming. "And I say, Konrad, what pretty lips she has! I like those long teeth that make the upper lip say to the lower, 'If you won't kiss when I do, I'll have a separation.' Do you see what I mean, Konrad, you dullard?"

Lilly could not help laughing heartily, and at once they were on the best of terms. Even Konrad's dear, haggard face lighted up for a moment with a reassuring smile which did her heart good. For his sake she could almost have thrown herself under his uncle's feet, so dearly did she love him. And with a feeling of rising triumph she thought, "I'll just show him how awfully nice I can be to the old curmudgeon."

It was not so difficult, after all. When she looked at his round, puckered, mischievous old face, with the keen shrewd grey eyes and the beautifully waved snow-white wig--it was actually a wig peaked on the forehead and brushed into two outstanding curls over his ears like a judge's--she felt more and more that he was a good and tried comrade, with whom she had often had good times in the past. And yet she had certainly never met him before.

He had a masterful air of breeding about him, despite his plebeian exterior. His choice of the menu was simply admirable. The 'sixty-eight Steinberger, which flowed into the crystal glasses like liquid amber, suited the blue trout to such perfection that it might have been their native element; and the sweet-bread patties à la Montgelas were worthy accompaniments. Neither Richard nor any of his crew understood so well the gourmet's art.

If only he had not drunk whisky so perpetually in between!

"My brain has been so deadened by money-making," he said in justification, "I am obliged to give it a fillip now and then, or it would become completely dulled."

With the punch à la romaine, a brief and vivacious debate arose as to the merits of certain American drinks, in which Lilly, with her extensive knowledge of bars and beverages, scored. She even knew the exact ingredients of her host's speciality, the "South Sea Bowl," in which sherry, cognac, angostura bitters, with the yolks of eggs and Château d'Yquem, or, if necessary, moselle, contributed to make a fiery mixture. She went so far as to offer to prepare this curious mixture for him after dinner with the skill of an expert, so that he would have to confess he had never drunk anything more delicious between Singapore and Melbourne.

Konrad, who obviously had never suspected her genius in this direction, listened to her with an amazement that filled her with pride. She telegraphed to him one secret signal after the other, asking, "Aren't you pleased? Am I not being very, very nice to him?"

But somehow he would not respond. He was silent and absent-minded, and it often seemed as if he did not belong to the party.

"Well, he may dream if he likes," she thought blissfully. "I'll look after our interests."

Thus every minute the friendship between her and the old worldling grew apace.

By the time they had got to the wild-duck and the dark glowing burgundy, which slid down their throats like warm caresses, she had already begun to call him "dear uncle." He, on his side, declared over and over again that he was "totally wrapped up in his dear, dear little Lilly."

So this was the test, the cruel probation, which she had dreaded with all her soul, through which she had expected to come dissected and unmasked, with every rag of concealment rudely torn off!

When she thought of how differently things were turning out, she could hardly contain herself for glee. There sat the mighty, dreaded peril, whose money-bags meant victory or defeat, a little wild beast tamed, who squeezed her fingers in his repulsive shrivelled hands and fawned on her for a smile.

He was undoubtedly quite amusing, especially when he told good stories.

What a lot of scandal he had gathered in the Colonies! In one evening he told more anecdotes than she had heard for a year. There was, for example, the story of the German Governor, Herr von So-and-So--she had once met him herself at Uhl's--who took up his duties abroad with a suite consisting of secretary, valet, and cook. In six months the cook came and said, "Herr Governor, I am----" He gave her two thousand marks and said, "Here you are, but keep quiet." Then she went to the secretary and said, "Herr Müller, I am----" He gave her three hundred marks and said, "Not a word." Then she went to the valet and said, "Johann, I'm so far gone, we'd better marry." After three months the valet came to the Governor and said, "Your Excellency, the hussy took us all in. The child is black!" And many another yarn followed of the same sort. In short, she nearly died of laughing.

"Konrad, why don't you laugh? Laugh, dearest."

And then he really did smile, but his eyes remained grave and his brow tense.

When the champagne came, they drank each other's health again, and kissed. The touch of those thick sensual old lips was horrible, but to ensure her future happiness it had to be endured. She was going to give Konrad a kiss too, but he declined it. Still worse, he tried to prevent her drinking so much.

"She ought to be more careful," he urged. "Please, uncle, don't fill up her glass so often. We never drink so much as this."

The other two laughed at him.

"He always was a bit of a muff," jeered his old uncle, "and never knew what was good. He's not good enough for you, Lilly; you ought to have a fellow like me--not a prig. He's like a mute at a funeral."

But she saw no joke in this.

"You shan't abuse my darling Konni, you old wretch! Go on telling your old chestnuts. Allons! Fire away!"

No, not a word should be breathed against her dear, sweet Konni!

So uncle started telling good stories again. This time he related them in pigeon-English, that gibberish which the Chinese and other interesting inhabitants of the far East use as a medium of communication with the white sahibs. "Tom and Paddy in the Tea-house"; "The virtuous spinster Miss Laura"; "The Guide and the Bayadere." Each was received with a box of the ears.

"But we mustn't let Konni hear any more, uncle dear. Konni might be corrupted."

So saying, she inclined her left ear very close to dear uncle's lips, and made with her hollowed hand between them a "whispering-tube," which was the custom of "the crew" when any of them wanted to flirt unheard, or do anything else particularly outrageous.

It would be a sad mistake to suppose that she was in the least abashed or unequal to giving as good as she got. The general's "lullabies" were spicy enough, and she had learned from "the crew" much that was of unquestionable origin and questionable taste. For such an appreciative audience as uncle proved to be, it was worth while doing one's best. But the innocent Konrad had to submit to his ears being stuffed up with the wadding on which the Colville apples had been served.

After the coffee, uncle challenged her to keep her promise about brewing the South Sea Bowl, her vaunted knowledge of which, of course, had been mere brag.

She would show him! He shouldn't scoff at her a second time. A variety of bottles were brought; besides the sherry and the angostura, an old, sweet liqueur. It was a pity, uncle thought, to mix such good things, and he took two or three glasses of the latter neat, and she followed his example.

The tiresome eggs broke at the wrong place, it was true, and emptied their contents on her dress and the carpet. But what did that matter? It merely increased the fun ... and dear old uncle was paying for everything. To make up for the eggs smashing, the blue flame of the alcohol-lamp leapt up merrily as high as the orchids, as high as the ceiling.... She would have loved to lick up the flames, as the witches did.

"Your luck, Konni!--our luck, Konni!"

"Don't drink it," she heard him say, and his voice sounded harder than usual. Indeed, she hardly recognised it as his voice at all.

"Muff!" she laughed, and thrust out her tongue at him. "Muff!"

"Don't drink it!" the warning voice said again. "You are not used to it."

She not used to drinking! How dared he say so? This was an insult to her honour; yes, an insult to her honour.

"How do you know what I am used to? I am used to plenty of things you don't guess.... Here, on this seat where I am sitting now, I have sat more than once--more than ten times--and have drunk ten times more."

"Dearest heart, you don't know what you are saying. It isn't true."

Once more his voice sounded gentle and soothing, as if he were reproving a naughty child.

"How dare you say it isn't true? Do you take me for an impostor? I suppose you think I am not at home in swell places like this!... Pooh! Shall I give you a proof? I can--I can!... You'll find my name scratched at the foot of this lamp. Look and you'll find it.... 'Lilly Czepanek ... Lilly Czepanek.' Look! Look, I say!"

He had started to his feet, his face rigid, and fixed his eyes in horror on the polished silver mirror of the lamp, on which was a jumble of scribbled hieroglyphics. He could not distinguish amongst them the L. C. for which he was looking till she came to his assistance. Here, no; there, no. The letters swam into one another. It was like trying to catch hold of the goldfish in the aquarium.

Hurrah! here it was. That was it--"L. v. M." and the coronet above. For in those days she had often had the audacity to call herself by the forbidden title as a temporary adornment.

"Now, do you see, Konni, that I was right? Now you won't mind how much I drink, will you, you dear, precious little muff?"

Utterly crushed by the proof, he sank back in his chair without a single word.

His uncle and Lilly went on drinking and laughing at him.

At this moment she happened to catch sight of herself in the glass. Through a billowy haze she beheld a flushed, puffy face with dishevelled hair falling about it from under a crooked hat, and two deeply marked lines running from mouth to chin. It was not a pleasing spectacle, and she was a little disturbed at it; but before she could distress herself further, the old uncle claimed her attention with a new joke.

"Do you know, Lilly dear, how the Chinese sing 'Die Lorelei'?"

Before she had heard a syllable she went into a fit of giggles. He crossed his bandy legs and played a prelude on the side of his foot as if it were a banjo, "Ping, pang, ping"; and then he began in a cracked, nasal, gurgling voice, drawling his "l's."

When he came to the second verse:

he heightened the effect by tearing the wig from his head, and now he looked for all the world like an old nodding mandarin, with his slits of eyes and his polished bare ivory skull.

It was fascinatingly and overwhelmingly funny. Never in her life had she seen such a mirth-provoking, side-splitting piece of clowning. You could have died of envy if you hadn't been Lilly Czepanek, the renowned mimic and impersonator, who, when the spirit moved her, had only to open her lips to rouse a tornado of applause.

Her incomparable repertoire had been growing rusty for too long. "La belle Otéro" was not yet stale, and Tortajada was dancing her ravishing dances, while Matchiche was just becoming the rage.

All you had to do was to tilt your hat a little further back, to raise your black skirt--the dessous was part of what had been brought away yesterday, and would not have disgraced a Saharet--and then you were off!

And she was off! Off like a whirlwind over the carpet, slippery with the yolks of eggs that she had spilt. Hop, skip--olé! olé! Yes, you must shout "Olé!" and clap your hands. "Olé-é-é----"

Dear uncle bawled; the floor rocked in great waves.... Lamps and mirrors danced with her. All hell seemed to be let loose.

"Konni, why don't you shout 'Olé'? ... Don't be so down ... Olé!"

"Uncle, you will have this on your conscience!"

What did he mean by saying that? Why was he sobbing? Why did he stand there as white as the tablecloth?

"Olé--ol-é-é-é!"

CHAPTER XXI

Towards noon Lilly awoke in a rapture of joy.

The formidable uncle had been won--the last obstacle cleared from her path--the future lay spread out at her feet like a land of milk and honey. The probation looked forward to with such anxiety and terror had turned out, after all, only a delightful spree. What a mountebank and buffoon that shrewd old man of the world was, who probably had ground women's hearts under his heel as indifferently as he crunched walnuts. When she tried, however, to review the events of the previous evening she felt a slight dismay at nothing emerging from her blurred memory but the sounds of song and uproarious laughter, just as it used to be in that other life when she had spent the night in mad revels with Richard and his friends.

As the mist lifted a little, she saw a deadly white face petrified by pained surprise, heard an exclamation that was half a sob and half a groan, and saw herself, sobbing too, kneeling before someone who pushed her away with his hands.

Had that happened, or had she dreamed it?

And she had danced and sung so beautifully! She had exhibited her art at its best. Could there have been anything displeasing in it? Had she, perhaps, gone a little too far in her high spirits?

Her anxiety grew. She sprang out of bed, and her one thought was that she must go to him instantly.

At twelve the bell rang.

That was Konrad; it must be Konrad. But, when she flew to the lobby door to throw herself into his arms with a cry of joy and relief, she found that she was standing face to face with his uncle, who stood twirling his hat in his horrid fingers, and looked at her with a significant smile that she did not like at all.

"Is it to come all over again--the probation," she thought, "or is it now only coming off for the first time?"

"How do you do?" died in her throat. She let him in without speaking. A sensation of faintness came over her, as if she were going to fall backwards through the wall into her room.

It was the old man who opened the door and walked in, with the air of an acquaintance who knew his way about.

"Where is Konrad?"

"Konrad?" he repeated, and scratched the silk band of his wig with his little finger. "I've something to say about Konrad."

He drew out his glittering watch, with its massive chain, and studied the hands.

"I make it just ten minutes past twelve. By now he will be on his way to the station--most probably he has started."

"Is he ... going away?" she stammered, while her breath began to fail her.

"Yes, yes. He is going away.... We settled that last night.... He needs a change."

"It's nonsense," she thought; "how can he go away for a change without me?"

But she put a restraint on herself and asked casually, "Where is he thinking of going so suddenly?"

"Oh! he's taking a little trip abroad hardly worth speaking about. It seemed a favourable opportunity. A double cabin was going begging on the steamer leaving--er--never mind where!... an outside cabin, you know; on the promenade deck; pleasantest position, you know; no splashing, and lots of air.... One wants plenty of air, especially during those four days in the Red Sea."

Then she was right. Her suspicions that the probation of her character and intentions was only to begin seriously now were being verified.

"What takes people to the Red Sea, uncle dear?" she asked, with her most ingenuous smile.

"Yes, what takes them to the Red Sea? Four thousand years ago the ancient Jews asked the same question, and everyone asks it to-day when he finds himself sweltering there. But still, if you want to go to India, you must pass through the Red Sea.... And I want to go to India once more. I've been quite long enough trotting about the pavements at home. And as our Konrad is overworked--you'll admit he is, child--I have talked him into coming to travel with me a bit. For in cases like this I believe change of scene is the best remedy. Do you see?"

Lilly felt a lump rise in her throat as if all the links of his gold watch-chain were choking her.

"This joke isn't in the best of taste," she thought; "and God knows what he means by it."

But whether she liked it or not, she had to play at the game. "Konrad might have had the grace to come and say goodbye to me prettily," she replied, pouting a little, as if a journey to Potsdam or Dresden was in question.

"Well, you see, child, that's what he wanted to do, of course. But I said to him, 'Look here, my boy, farewells are far too exciting and unnerving, and may bring on apoplexy.' He agreed, and left it to me to put matters straight with you."

"Well, by all means let us put matters straight," she answered, with the patronising smile that such a farce merited.

"I shouldn't be surprised," she thought, "if he were not waiting outside in the cab for a signal to come in."

"Uncle" placed his smart panama hat beside him on the floor, leaned his short body back in Frau Laue's red plush arm-chair, and affected an expression of distress and sympathy.

What an old clown he was! It mystified her more than anything that he seemed so absolutely to have forgotten the alliance they had entered into on the previous evening. But perhaps this was only part of the probation farce.

"If it were only a question of me, my dear," he went on, "it wouldn't matter. I honestly confess I'm mad about you--'wrapped up,' as I said last night. I have met womenfolk in all parts of the globe, and it's as clear to me as palm-oil that you are made of the choicest materials it's possible to find. But there are people, you know, who take life seriously and cherish grand illusions.... people who have no notion that a human being must be a human being. They think they are something extra, and expect life to afford them extra titbits. And then come disappointments, of course ... reproaches, despair ... tearing of hair, wringing of hands. I'm blowed if he didn't try to thrash me last night!"

"Whom are you talking about?" asked Lilly, becoming every moment more uneasy.

"Just as if I had led you on into the little overshooting of the mark! No, no ... that's not my way. I don't lay man-traps. And so I told him ten times over. The misfortune is, that you and I understood each other too well. You and I are in the same line of business.... We two are like two old colleagues."

"We two ...? You and I?" gasped Lilly in frigid amazement.

"Yes, you and I, my dear child. Don't have a fit--you and I; you and I. It's true that you are a splendid beauty of twenty-five, and I am a damned old fool of sixty.... But life has tarred us with the same brush. How am I to explain it to you?... Have you ever hunted for diamonds? I don't mean at the jeweller's. I'll lay a wager you know that way of hunting them. Well, a diamond lies embedded in hard rock, in tunnels ... so-called blue ground. If you find a blue-ground tunnel, you may imagine what it is; you just sit in it. Once I went diamond-hunting with a party of twenty, day and night, week after week. The blue ground was there all right, but the diamonds had been washed out of it. Do you follow me? The fine ground is still in both of us; but what made it fine the devil has in the meantime walked off with."

"Why do you tell me all this?" Lilly asked. Tears of bewilderment sprang to her eyes, for this couldn't possibly have anything to do with the probation.

"Now, child, I'll tell you why.... There are people who when they have given their word think there is no going back on it. They must swallow whatever they've put in their mouths, even if it's a strychnine pill.... My opinion, on the contrary, is that no one ought deliberately to plunge into misfortune--neither he nor you. And since the quickest method is to wash the wool while it's on the sheep, I've come to you to make a little proposition. See, here's a cheque-book. You know what cheque-books are, I expect. On the right side are printed figures from five hundred upwards: All the figures that make the amount bigger than the sum inscribed on the cheque are cut off, in case a little swindler should take it into his head with one little stroke of the pen to cheat one out of a little hundred thousand. Well now, look here. This cheque is signed and dated; the figures alone want to be filled in. I should never permit myself to offer you a certain sum, but I should like you to say what you think would be a decent provision for your future."

He tore the cheque out and laid it on the table in front of her.

"Thank Heaven," thought Lilly, "I had nothing to be afraid of! My heart need not have misgiven me."

Who could be so blind as not to see through this clumsy trick whereby he intended to put to the test her unselfishness about money? So she did not send the old man about his business, as she might with justice have done, if such a proposal had been made to her seriously, but she took the cheque off the table, smiling, tore it carefully to atoms, and flipped them one after the other into his face.

He fidgeted about in his arm-chair.

"Allow me," he said; "please allow me ..."

"No! Such scurvy little jokes I certainly will not allow, dear uncle," she replied.

"But you are declining a fortune, my child. Think what you are doing. We've upset the tenor of your life. We have, as it were, cast you on the gutter. That you shan't perish there is our responsibility. And if you think you will lower yourself in his eyes by accepting, I can swear to you he knows nothing about it; and never will, I'll swear too."

She only smiled.

His small slits of eyes grew bright and hard. Suddenly they began to threaten her.

"Or ... is it your intention not to give up the good boy--to hang his promise like a halter about his neck?... Are you one of that kind, eh?"

"No. I am not one of that kind."

Her smile reached far beyond him. It flew to greet the beloved who soon, very soon now, would be ascending the stairs; for surely he couldn't have patience to wait there outside in the cab much longer.

"His promise is his own. He's never given it. And if he had wanted to I would never have let him. And even if what you said just now was true, he might go away if he liked, and come back again, and I would not write to him or meet him, or remind him in any way of what he is and always will be to me as long as I live. But I know that it is not true. He loves me, and I love him. And take care, uncle, not to play so low down with his future wife as to offer her blank cheques and such disgraceful proposals. If I were to tell him, you would find yourself all at once a lonely old man whose fortune might go to endow a home for lost dogs."

He was obliged to see at last what a blunder he had committed. He jumped from his seat, evidently annoyed at his mistake, and ejaculated an irritable "Bah!" as he began to pace the room, jingling the charms on his watch-chain. Once or twice he murmured something that sounded like "A hangman's job." But she couldn't have heard right.

At last he seemed to arrive at a decision. He stopped close in front of her, laid his repulsive hands on her shoulders and said, suddenly becoming affectionate and familiar again:

"Listen, sweetheart, girlie, pretty one. Something has to be done. We can't shirk the point. There must be a conclusion. If only I weren't such a damned mangy old hound and hadn't to consider the dear boy's feelings in the matter, things would be simple enough. I should merely say, 'Come along with me to the nearest registry-office. But hurry up; I haven't time to waste!' Don't stare! Yes--me. I'd ask you to marry me. You wouldn't have reason to regret it. But Konrad--you must see yourself it won't do--won't do. It would be a fatal mistake from beginning to end. He is a rising man. He wants to climb to the top; he is still blessed with faith, and you haven't any left. You fell too early into the great sausage-machine which minces us all sooner or later into average meat.... You wouldn't be happy with him long. You couldn't keep up to him. You'd drag on him like a dead weight, and would always be conscious of it. As for last night's revelation, which opened his eyes, I don't lay so much stress on that. It's not a question of what the coastline looks like--sand or palms, it's all the same--but it's the interior that counts. And there I see waste land, burnt-up scorched deserts; no birds flying across it; no ground in which confidence can strike root. Child, creep into any shelter life offers you, cling to those who have brought you to this pass; but let the boy go. He is not made for you. Be honest; haven't you long ago said so yourself?"

Ah, so this was what he meant! It was not a probation, but the end--the end!

She gazed into vacancy. She seemed to hear steps growing fainter; one after the other they slowly died away, like his footsteps when at break of day he had softly stolen downstairs.

But this was final. They had died away for ever.

A dull sense of disappointment gnawed at her heart. That was all. The worst would come later, as she knew by experience.

And then she saw a vision of herself dancing and yelling, laughing at foul jests, with her hat awry and her skirts held high--a drunken wanton! She, the "lofty-minded saint" with the "brow divine," a drunken wanton--nothing more and nothing less.

Now she knew why he had stood there with his face as white as the tablecloth--why that sobbing groan of pain had burst from his lips. And it was pity for him as much as shame of herself that made of this moment a boiling hell.

"How is he bearing it?" she asked, stammering.

"You can guess how," he replied, "but I believe I shall pull him through."

"Oh, uncle ... I ... didn't ... I didn't want to do it ..." she cried, sobbing.

"I know, child; I know. He told me all."

For an instant her wounded pride flamed up within her. She stooped, and gathering together a handful of the bits of torn paper, she held them out to him on her open palm.

"And you dared to offer me that?"

"What was I to do, my dear? And what am I to do with you now?"

"Pah!" and she struck at him with both hands, but the next moment she threw her arms round his neck and wept on his shoulder. Perhaps her cheek touched the very place which Konrad last night might have wetted with his tears!

He began to reason with her again. He made suggestions for her future. He would help her to begin a new life, and provide tier with the means to cultivate her brilliant histrionic talents; she should come out on the stage or the concert platform. But she shook her head.

"Too late, uncle.... Waste land--didn't you say so yourself?--ground where no confidence can take root. I might aspire to be a music-hall star, but honestly I don't think it would pay."

"Cursed hounds!" he growled.

"Who are cursed hounds?"

"You know well enough, my child."

She reflected a moment as to whom he could mean. Then she said:

"There was only one ... no, two, and then afterwards one more ... and then two more who didn't count."

"Well, that seems to me to be plenty, dear."

He patted her cheeks and smiled kindly, and somehow she did not find his fingers repulsive any more.

She felt that she must smile too, though she began crying again directly.

Konrad's uncle prepared to take his departure, and she clung on tightly to his shoulder. She couldn't bear to let him go. He was the last link with her vanished dream of happiness.

"What message shall I take him?" he asked.

She drew herself erect. Her eyes widened. She wanted to pour out the full flood of her grief. Her shattered and squandered love sought for winged words which should bear it to him, sanctified and hallowed anew. But no words came.

She looked wildly round the room, as if from some quarter of it help must come. The portraits of defunct actors smiled down on her; once so eloquent, they were dumb now dumb as her own frozen soul. The specimen lamp-shade in its frame greeted her, presaging a future to be passed at Frau Laue's side.

"I have nothing to say," she faltered. Then she thought of something after all. "Ask him ... ask him, please, why he didn't come himself to say good-bye. I know that he is not a coward."

Uncle made one of his queerest faces.

"As you have been so astoundingly sensible, little woman, I'll tell you the secret. He wanted to come and say good-bye--most dreadfully, of course. And I promised him that I'd try and bring you to the station."

In an instant she was making a dash for her straw hat.

"Stop!"

He had laid his hand on her arm. The short, squat figure seemed to grow taller.

"You won't go."

"What? Konni is expecting me, wants to speak to me? And I am not to go?"

"I say again, 'You won't go.' If you are the plucky girl I take you for, you will not spoil your work of sacrifice. For, depend upon it, if once he sees you again you'll hang on to each other for evermore."

The straw hat slipped from her hand.

"Then ... tell him ... I shall always love him, always and always, that he will be my last thought on earth.... And ... I don't know what else to say."

He silently made his way out of the room.

And then she broke down.

CHAPTER XXII