Chapter VI (2)

In the middle of the room she stopped. "You wanted to speak to me, brother-in-law?" she said very composedly.

"Take a seat, will you, Helen;" and he pointed to a carved tripod stool that was covered with drawings and rolls of paper.

"Thank you, no. I hope you will not want me long; I am busy, for Christel is at church, and there is no one in the kitchen. What was it you wished to say to me?"

He hesitated a moment, and threw a hasty glance to try and find out the mood she might be in. Her serious face remained impassive.

"Doctor Hansen, the notary, was at the 'Star' last night," began the Meister, while he turned over the leaves of his book with a show of indifference. "He has never been seen in a wine-house, you know, since that sick sister of his died. And this time he had a particular reason for coming; and while he was walking home with me, he told me that reason. In short, he wants to marry you, Helen!"

She did not move a muscle.

"What made him speak to you about it?" she said, very coldly.

"He wanted to know if I thought you hated him."

"What could he have done to make me hate him?"

"What indeed? He is an honorable man--there is not a contrary opinion in the town; only he believes himself to be the object of your particular aversion. Every time he tried to speak to you, he says, you frowned and turned away."

"If I did, it was because I soon saw what he wanted of me. Where's the use of being civil to a man, if he has to be rejected in the end?"

"And why rejected?"

She paused before she spoke: "Be candid, brother; did he not ask you what my fortune was?"

"He asked me nothing of the kind."

"He had heard then, without asking, as much as was necessary for him to know. He is considered a clever man of business, I believe?"

"What of that? can't a man of business have human feelings as well as another? At all events he is in love now, Helen."

"In love, is he? you don't say so," and her lips quivered strangely as she spoke; "how can he find time for that piece of folly, with all his business? However, I suppose I should feel grateful to him, so you had better save him farther trouble, and tell him that I cannot have the honor--that I regret,--and so forth; and to comfort him, you can tell him what a cross-grained treacherous race I come of, and what a miserable mistake you made in marrying my sister. Only think how that poor man would be to be pitied, if I were to play him such a terrible trick, as poor Rose played you, and light the stove with all I am worth, and only leave enough to bury me! Tell him that story, brother, and I dare say he will be completely comforted."

She had turned white as she was speaking, and kept her eyes fixed upon him, with a look of cool defiance he was not able to withstand; only when she was about to leave the room, and put an end to farther discussion, he recovered himself again. "I have not done yet;" he said gloomily.

"Not yet?--but my patience will not last much longer."

"_Nor_ mine. I tell you plainly, I will not stand this nonsense with the boy. In putting a stop to it I am only doing my duty by him."

"How long have you been so conscious of your duty to him?"

"Let by-gones be by-gones!" he said violently; "you will not stop my mouth with them, as you suppose. I tell you I can't bear to see your goings on with him; petting and patting that great grown fellow! I say, it is bad for him, do you hear me?--and if you don't give over, I shall find means to make you; you may take my word for it."

She opened her great grave eyes, and held her peace. Her self-possession appeared to embarrass him, and he went on in a quieter tone.

"I know what he owes you well enough; and what I have to thank you for; there can be no question of that. If things had gone on as they did when the boy first came, it would have been the ruin of him, body and soul. It is bad for children to feel themselves hated, and I was not in a position to save him from the feeling. You were a mother to him then, and his affection for you is no more than natural--within proper bounds. Wherever these are not, the devil steps in, and sows his tares. I need not explain my meaning; enough--he is now nineteen, and you are no more than nine-and-twenty. Don't let me see this sort of thing again. He is _not_ to fall asleep over his reading as he did yesterday, and the lamp _need_ not go out."

He averted his face, let his head fall back upon his pillow, and drew up his suffering leg. Whether he really was in pain, or only wished to break off the conversation, was not quite evident.

After a moment of breathless silence on both sides: "It is well," she said, with smothered utterance; "there are not many things in the world that could surprise me now; from _you_, nothing!--but that your way of thinking could be so base as this, even I could scarce be prepared for."

"Oho!" he said, very coolly. "Be so good as to spare these grand expressions for an occasion where they may seem more fitting. What I now say, and what I intend to do, I am ready to account for before any jurisdiction whatever, and call on my own seeing eyes to witness. Lovers are blind, we all know that; only they need not suppose other people to be blind as well."

"Lovers!" she echoed, with an irrepressible gust of passion.

"Lovers; I say, lovers;" he repeated, with emphasis: "He, at least, is on the high-road to that condition, whether he be aware of it or not; and you must have lived these nine-and-twenty years in a maze, if you really do not see that you are over head and ears in love with the boy. You don't mean to come to me, I hope, with that trash and nonsense about adoption and maternal feelings. The thing is as I state it, whatever you may please to say. But if you do search your heart, and ask yourself what is to be the end of it--whether you mean to go on rejecting respectable men who would make good husbands, for the sake of your nonsensical love-scenes with a half grown hobbledehoy----"

"Enough," she interrupted him, with glowing cheeks: "Now I assuredly do know enough of yourself and your opinions. They cannot affect me much, for I never had any ambition with regard to them. There are many things in which we differ, only before I turn my back upon you, I should be glad to hear what you have resolved upon in this matter."

"As I have repeatedly told you; I am resolved to make an end of this, and part you two, the sooner, the better."

"And how?"

"As it turns out. If you take the wisest course, and marry Dr. Hansen, it would be the best plan for all of us, and a better proof of your sincerity with your motherhood, than all this ranting, and shrugging of shoulders. If you cannot make up your mind to this, the boy will have to go."

"As a Wanderbursch? As a common house-painter?"

"As a house-painter, of course; what else can he be? you know I am not in a position to send him to an architectural school, or to afford his keep for six or seven years, instead of having him here, to help me to an honest livelihood, now that I am half a cripple."

"Well, you have spoken frankly to me," she answered after a pause; "and I suppose for that much, I ought to thank you. What must be, will be, one way or the other; meantime you are at liberty to think what you please--and I know what I have to think."

She turned to the door, but as she laid her hand on the lock, he called after her: "I asked Hansen to dine with us to-day. I don't intend to say a word more upon the subject. You must give him your answer yourself."

She said nothing, she only gave an absent nod, and went--but not into the kitchen. Her heart beat violently as she flew upstairs, to take refuge in her own room. It was off the sitting-room, with two narrow windows, that looked out on the sunny street. As soon as she felt herself alone, she sat down upon her bed, for her knees were knocking under her, and she could scarcely stand. She sat staring at the motes dancing in the sunbeam, that fell aslant upon the floor. As rapid and impalpable as those whirling atoms, was the vortex in her brain. At last, her eyes ran over; and, in a gush of passionate tears, she poured forth the pain and grief she had repressed so sternly and so scornfully, through all that hostile conference below.

* * * * *

About this time, Walter came in from a French lesson which, on Helen's advice, he was in the habit of taking after early church. He went straight to a large low room upon the ground-floor. The dining-table stood in the centre of it, and a few old presses and cupboards, ranged round the walls, contained the Meister's whole stock of decorative designs, and all his plans and patterns.--Here, it was evident, a feminine hand kept order. The boards of the dinner-table were polished white with scrubbing. The sand lay still immaculate upon the floor, and the large pots of ivy by the windows, shaded the purest, brightest panes.

The room looked to the court and garden, and was entirely sunless; so that Walter, who had taken out his drawing-board, and seated himself in the best light, undisturbed by a single ray, very soon became absorbed in his work.

There was an old villa outside the town, that had formerly belonged to a family of rank, and had now been purchased by the rich Burgermeister. There, among other rooms that wanted painting, was a large saloon in the Rococo style, that had to be restored from the very foundation. And for many weeks past, the Meister had refused all other orders, that he might finish this master-piece within the appointed time.--Here, as every where, Walter had to help him vigorously. But while with bold pencil, he was grouping arabesques and wreaths of fruit and flowers, adapted from old engravings, to renovate the obliterated ceiling in its original style, he found it far more interesting to study the whole plan of the building, and then, taking note of its measures and proportion's, to work it out at leisure, after his own head, with its sections, height and basements. He had only a sweet stolen hour or two, on holidays, to spend on these. The Meister snarled and scolded him, when he came in and caught him at such allotria--"Where's the good of them?" he growled. "There are many things more needful to our business--"

To-day, however, the old man was safe in his own room, tied by the leg, and could not possibly disturb him; so he worked on quietly and quickly, and hoped to have done by dinner-time.

All at once the door opened, and in slipped a small dark figure, with his hands in his trowser's pockets, and his close shorn raven head slightly inclined towards his left shoulder, which was visibly some inches higher than his right one. He kept the lower part of his face on the stretch of an everlasting grin--and while the thin lips always seemed prepared for a whistle or a jovial smack, the restless grey eyes had wicked gleams of malice, and cunning, and consuming desire.

"Good morning, young genius;" he said, coming round the table with noiseless step; "busy as a bee?--When you come to my time of life," (he was barely five-and-twenty), "you will have spent a good part of that speed, and will be glad enough to take your Sundays easily as I do, in having a good long sleep, and then in pleasantly getting rid of your wretched wages, that are certainly not worth the keeping. Even now, if you were not such a stiffnecked sort of virtue, I should say to you: 'Put that scrawl in the fire, and come with me. I could show you where you may taste a sound French wine, that is well worth its price."

"Much obliged to you," said Walter coldly, "your taste is not mine, Peter Lars; and I can't stand wine in the morning--"

"I know you can't," sneered Peter. "You are such a pattern of propriety!--And for as tall and as broad as you are, you let yourself be led about by a piece of womankind, like a cockchafer tied to a thread. What we men think of that, you never care to know."

"Men!" echoed Walter, and with all the young fellow's kindheartedness, he could not repress the look of irony that stole over his features.

"I say, men;" repeated the little dark one, and stretched himself in all his limbs. "One need not be six foot high, to feel oneself a man by the side of women's darlings, and giant babies in swaddling clothes."

"Thank Heaven, then, Peter Lars, for having made a man of thee, and go thy ways rejoicing--What's the use of coming here to worry me? can't you leave me to myself in peace? Do I look after you?" Peter came close up to him, and peered in his face with a wicked smile.

"I do not mean to disturb you long," he said; "but I could not deny myself the pleasure of congratulating so dutiful a son, on the acquisition of a bran new step-papa. Ha! now I see our bright young genius can vouchsafe to look at me;" and, in fact, Walter was staring at him in speechless surprise.

"What are you talking of?"--he said impatiently.

"Of nothing, and of nobody less, than Mamsell Helene! who does not mean to content herself, with petting her great big boy for ever; and begins to feel a hankering after real legitimate babies of her own, and of more natural dimensions."

"Don't be stupid!"--and Walter laughed, half in anger, and half amused at the idea. It had never occurred to him before. "_She_ never means to marry! That is a fact I happen to know."

"None of your arrogant contradictions, I beg," retorted Peter; "one may be a very bright young genius, and yet see nothing of what is passing in broad daylight--I have it upon the best authority. I know she is going to be married, and moreover I can tell you, to whom."

"Tell me then."

"What can that signify to you?--To you, one step-father must be just as inconvenient as another. Those happy days are over, when you made rain and sunshine, and used to be her darling, and the core of her heart, and the apple of her eye. At least the new Papa would be a terrible ninny, if he were not prepared to decline with thanks a wedding present as large as life--of such a stepson. And, indeed, it should be all one to me, as well. Having always had the honor of enjoying the haughty damsel's undivided aversion, it can make no difference to me, whether her choice be M. or N.; it does not in any way alter my position, as a vermin,--toad, bug, spider, worm--what you please--to be trodden upon and crushed, were it not for the risk of soiling a dainty shoe----"

"Nonsense--you exaggerate, as you always do--but tell me--"

"Whether I exaggerate or not, nobody can tell except myself;" and he distorted his ignoble mouth to a grimace of atrocious spite. "Why should I make any secret of it?--On this very spot, not ten days ago, I came and made her a formal offer of my hand and heart. Upon which she just walked out and left me standing, as if I had been an idiot, not worth answering!--Bah!--I can laugh at it now!--I can't think what possessed me! I am not such a beggar as to care for her thalers. If it were not for my own amusement, I could throw over the whole concern--give up this daubing and scrawling business, and go home to my own place, where my father and mother are well to do, living comfortably on their own broad acres.--Only I was such an ass as to be smitten with this scornful damsel, and I would have been willing to forget that she is no chicken; (several years older than myself in fact.) And she--I tell you she looked at me as if a toad had spit its venom on her. Death and damnation! wouldn't I have given her a piece of my mind! Only I thought: '_She_ will never marry--she will have nobody--she must have found a thing or two in her past life, to disgust her with man and marriage;' and so I choked upon my wrath. But this is quite another affair. If she hangs out other colors, and capitulates to another suitor, I see she did not think me good enough--"

He swallowed down the rest of his abuse, and only waved about his hands, in confused convulsive gesticulation.

"Are you sure of what you are saying?" asked Walter in a low voice, that was trembling with some strong suppressed emotion. "Who is the man?--is it a settled thing?--And yet no--it is impossible--only last night--"

"What do you venture to call impossible, when you are speaking of a woman?? Bah! teach _me_ their tricks and dodges!--_I_ saw how late it was last night, when you left her!--I dare say she would not let you go, but coddled you to her heart's content, it being the last time. But I tell you it is as true--as true as that the sun is shining.--She is going to be married--and her choice is no other that wretched quilldriver of a lawyer--"

"Hansen?--the Doctor?"--

"If he be not the man, and my story be not true, I give you leave to call me rogue. Just now I was in the little lumber room off the Meister's, where he keeps his samples of colors, and I was looking out some that we shall want to-morrow--for he blew me up about them yesterday--when I heard Mamsell Helene come into his room, and they had a long confabulation. I could not hear it all, but the upshot of it was, that she means to take him. Of course she made a fuss about it--but when he said: 'He is to dine with us to-day, and you can give him your answer,' she was mum as a mouse. If she did not mean it to be favorable, I much mistake her if she would not have declined the pleasure of eating her dinner with him first. She is not so fond of speaking up, and saying no to a fellow, as I know by my own experience."

"Surely you must have heard wrong, Peter;" and the young fellow fell into a fit of musing; "it can't be possible."

"Can't be possible!--but what's the use of talking of men's business to a baby. I only repeated the thing that I might not choke upon it. For a girl like that, to go and marry a rusty fusty lawyer--a scribbler of deeds and parchments! He has not a conception of what she is worth, except in thalers! Ha!--would not she be a delicate morsel for an artist, who looks farther than a trifle of white and red and those mincing ways that attract the crowd. What does a lawyer know about the lines of her face?--and that she has a figure fit to drive a fellow crazy? She does not show it off, to be sure--she wraps to the chin, as if she were a mummy,--more's the pity!--a stone might weep to see her! But for a man who has eyes in his head, one little finger is enough to construe the whole figure by, and you might search the world over, before you could find--"

"Silence!" interrupted Walter passionately--"I will not hear another word." He had sprung to his feet, with a flaming face. "Get out! I say, and never let me hear that you have spoken your foul thoughts to any other living soul--or else--"

And he struck his clenched fist upon the table, with a violence that made the very walls shake.

"Milksop! baby face!" and Peter gnashed his teeth, while he retreated from his immediate neighbourhood; "It shall go to its mother--it shall--and have its pap--and sit on its own mammy's lap, and have a smart new dress for her wedding-day. Ha! such a fellow as that is not worthy of a man's confidence. I did feel sorry to see you in a cunning woman's leading strings; and I pitied you--but now go to!--I despise you as much as I pitied you before. We two have had our last words together."

And with his most vicious look, Peter sauntered away, whistling.

Walter remained standing on the selfsame spot for half an hour, at least, without moving. His brain was reeling--he fetched his breath heavily, and shut his eyes, as though he felt ashamed to see himself by the light of day, while such thoughts were seething in his imagination. At last he heard Helen's step upon the stairs; he felt as if he had been scalded, and impelled by some inexplicable instinct, he seized his cap, and fled; through the garden, out into the open country.

She heard him go, but she had no suspicion that it was from her he fled; she went to the window and looked after him as long as she could catch a glimpse of his long light hair among the leafless shrubberies.

She thought she had wept away all that had been so heavy on her heart. People who are sparing of their tears expect wonders from them, and the good they are supposed to do, when they do flow. But she found they had done very little to solace her.

What made her weep so bitterly? She had long schooled herself to meet aggression with the tranquil energy of a mind, that no contradiction of fate can disappoint or surprise, for the reason that it is entirely without hopes or wishes.

She believed that she had nothing to expect from life--nothing to gain. Now, she had been suddenly reminded how much she had to lose.

First of all:--to a proud spirit the bitterest loss--confidence in her own heart. Those unsparing words, concerning her relations with a child, whom she had seen grow up to manhood, had sounded strange and incomprehensible when she had first heard them--she believed that she could shake them from her, as an insult. Other cares that had arisen during that interview with her brother-in-law, had then appeared more urgent. But as soon as she had found herself alone in her silent room, all other cares had dissolved like shadows, and the words she had so scornfully disowned--these words alone remained.

She thought over the ten years that had passed, since she had first entered that dreary house; when the intimidated boy, dumb between his adopted parents, who quarrelled over him daily, with ever-increasing discord, had come to her at once, and poured forth all the sorrows of his little heart to her, and had clung to her with overflowing love and confidence. Without many words, he had understood that she was to be his protectress.

It was a task she did not find easy always, especially as opposed to her own sister. But the compensation was a thousandfold, in her tenderness for the child, in whom his early hardships appeared to have blighted all the gaiety and elasticity of his age; and now under her genial influence, she saw these expand, brighter and more spontaneous, from year to year.

And she knew that he owed her more than this mere deliverance from bodily durance. She had been as indefatigable in the tending of his mind; in helping him to complete in private, the defective education of the common school which he attended daily. In this, she had no small opposition to suffer from her pupil and his artistic tastes; not to speak of her own inclination to do his bidding, instead of enforcing hers. Far pleasanter she would have found it, to sit working by his side, listening to his good-humoured rattle, while he was busy over some architectural drawing; than to tie him down to the thread of a weary lesson-book, that was to drag him through some dry essentials of education. But in all things she had taught herself to consider, first of all, his real wants and future welfare. She had never trifled with her maternal duties, nor been childish with her child.

Was it strange that, in time, the course of all her plans and wishes fell into this single channel? that, waking or sleeping, he was ever before her eyes? that these followed him, unconsciously, in all his movements when he was present; and, when absent, that she looked as constantly towards the door, and listened to nothing so interesting as his returning step?

And now when she mentally compared him with, all the other men she had known in all these years, was she not justified in believing that she could do without any and all of these, if only he remained to her? And there was no weak idolatry in this; she had never deceived herself. She saw that he was neither handsome, nor graceful, not even of very engaging manners; she often teased him about his awkward ways and helpless movements, and his duncolored shock of hair; she acknowledged that his features were commonplace; that his figure was a clothes-stick, for all the tailor's pains to make a man of him. Yet there was a charm about him, that even strangers and coarser natures, she observed, seldom could resist; a breath of freshest, purest youthfulness;--an innate tact of the heart; a dash of that genuine genial humour, that lends wings to the soul, and raises it high above the vulgar worship of any of the golden calves and idols of the day. It was strange;--but with this young pupil of hers, in worldly matters a child, she could discourse of the last aim and end of all mortal life, as though they had been centenarians in experience, and in years.

Thus it had been, and this had been their happiness; and was it to be no more? had it suddenly become so dangerous? Was it now to be avoided as a snare? She had been told to her face, that it was for the sake of this lad, that she rejected all her suitors. Well, she would not attempt to deny it. She would have deceived any man to whom she would have sworn to be only his. This feeling had grown to be a passion; but a passion that was hallowed by years of purest tenderness, of most unselfish sacrifice. She looked upon him as her own; and had she not a right to him?--what would he have been, without her?

And was she really to give him up?--The thought was more than she could bear. _He_ did not wish to leave her--_he_ knew how necessary she was to him. Could there really be danger in remaining as they were?--To him, certainly none; his whole life lay before him yet, wide and distant. _He_ could not lose by perfecting his growth in shade and solitude. To suppose that her own presence could prove dangerous to him, seemed nothing less than madness. She felt herself older by ten additional years to those she already was.

Could he ever possess her heart more entirely than he already did? was that possible?--And if it were, what harm could it do her?--She had nothing else in life to make it valuable to her, but this one feeling.

And yet she had been weeping,--long and bitterly. She felt as if some mute veiled fate were ever by her side. With all her self-command, and bracing resolutions, wherewith to strengthen herself in her own rights, and in the consciousness that others could have no legitimate power over her--except she gave it them--she could not overcome a feeling of anxiety, and an instinct that their happiest days were over, and trials and difficulties impending.

The Meister's threat of sending the lad away on his Wanderschaft, had not seriously alarmed her. She knew that he would scarcely make up his mind to part with him. Certainly not to drive him to a course so contrary to his inclinations. To dispose of him in any other way, in the Meister's position, would have been simply impossible. Yes, there had been hard times of want, when Helen had gladly come to his assistance; and thus he had become dependent on her, in a manner that, though she never took advantage of it, made him feel a sort of tacit obligation to desist from any very violent opposition to her wishes.

In fact no woman had less reason to fear the despotic interference of any man in her fate. Yet words had been spoken, that never could be made unspoken; and they had brushed the bloom off what had been dearest to her on earth.

She only became clearly aware of this, as she looked after his retreating figure in the garden, and felt almost glad that she had not met him; for the first time she might not have been able to look straight into his eyes. She had no idea that, within the last hour, he too had been startled out of the peace of his unsuspecting mind. She believed that the suffering was hers alone; and in the midst of her anxieties, she found no small comfort in the belief, that like a true mother, she had contrived to conjure over her own devoted head, the hostile elements that were threatening his. This helped her to recover her composure, for in the more absorbing troubles, she had almost forgotten the disagreeable task before her, of having definitively to reject and mortify a man, for whom she had never felt anything worse than indifference.

When the clock struck the dinner-hour, she entered the large dining-room with perfect self-possession; and received the notary, who bowed low before her, as she would have received any other guest of her brother-in-law. The Meister had left his bed, and joined them in his dressing-gown, in anything but a holiday trim, or holiday humour. He now lay stretched on a sofa, at a little distance from the table. An old neighbour, a standing guest on Sundays, stood modestly waiting with the two apprentice boys at the windows.

Walter came in such visible perturbation that he could scarcely stammer out the commonest forms of salutation. Nobody however seemed to notice this, except his little mother; who, perplexed by the sudden change in his demeanour, threw him a look of dismay, which he felt too conscious-stricken to receive with calmness.

The Meister enquired for Peter Lars, and scolded at his delay, until they all sat down to table without waiting for him.

It was some time before any kind of general conversation could be established. Walter kept his eyes upon his plate, and held his tongue, without attending to anything that was passing round him. The old neighbour, who, in general, was rather fond of playing the connoisseur, and holding forth in rambling dissertations on drawing and effects of color, was silent this time, as he saw the Meister neither spoke nor ate, but ground his teeth for self-command in bodily torture. The boys were tongue-tied, naturally, in their master's presence; and thus on Helen, and on the Notary, who sat opposite, the whole cost of the conversation fell.

There was nothing remarkable about his outward man. Only a fine forehead, and a pair of clear calm eyes, were the attractions of his face. And there was an expression of animated benevolence in his countenance when he spoke, that, together with the masculine cast of his features, was especially captivating to the confidence of his hearers.

After the first awkwardness of his meeting with Helen, he became gayer and more conversible than he was ever known to be. He spoke of his travels in Sweden and Norway; of the Scandinavian races; of their customs and holidays; of their national songs. He talked pleasantly, for he never generalized, either in praise or blame--each thing was distinctly drawn, given in its own peculiar coloring, with its distinctive touches. Even old Christel, who waited at table, left the door ajar to listen to him longer; and the Sunday guest applauded with approving nods, shoving in here and there a choice remark or two upon Scandinavian Art, which the traveller was so kind as to leave undisputed.

And yet his pains were wasted. Helen's attention was an effort. Her mind was engaged in speculations upon the possible cause of the cloud that had come over her darling's spirits.

She hazarded a jest or two, to win him over to the general conversation. But a beseeching, almost frightened look, from the young dreamer, had each time induced her to desist.

The bottle of wine produced by Christel, had been emptied to the better health of their host; it had been the lawyer's toast--who had returned thanks silently by a slight nod. He had not drunk a drop, and hardly waited for dinner to be over, to drag himself back to his own room, in order to groan without restraint, and, unheard, curse his sufferings.

While the table was being cleared away, the others had gone upstairs to take their coffee in the sitting-room. There, between the pictures and plaster-casts with which the walls were covered, stood an old pianoforte. It had not been opened for years; but now at Helen's request, Dr. Hansen had seated himself before it, and played a few national melodies from the North.

He then sang some of the songs, with a voice that, if somewhat uncultivated, was very musical.

Helen had taken her work to the window, where Walter stood gazing out into the street, without taking any notice of what was passing.

Under cover of the music she whispered a few questions. What ailed him?--Had the Meister been scolding him? had he been quarrelling with Peter Lars?--Peter's absence she thought suspicious.

Walter only shook his head; and at last, seized with an unaccountable fit of restlessness, he jumped up, and was about to escape for a solitary walk, when just then the door opened, and visitors entered. They were relations of the Meister's, Lottchen Klas and her mother--Lottchen Ellas, who, but yesterday, had stood so high in her partner's estimation. To-day he only felt annoyed, when the little maid came smiling in under her mother's wing, with a shy look of satisfaction, that made him conscious that his defection would be a great offence to her especially. However he hardly spoke a civil word, to either mother or daughter; and when Helen began some playful remark about their party of the night before, he fetched a book from the cupboard, and in the face of all good breeding, he settled himself to read, as though he had been in the remotest solitude.

Not long after, somebody proposed a walk, and, with the exception of the old neighbour, who took his leave, the whole company was set in motion. The mother walking in front, with Helen and Dr. Hansen; Walter following with his pretty little partner. But he was as taciturn as before--all along the peopled streets, and out by the town-gate to a garden where the higher among the burghers were wont to enjoy their Sunday afternoons,--he never spoke one word; he even neglected to bow to passing acquaintances;--he had no eye for the dismayed little face by his side, that grew cloudier and cloudier, until a shower of tears appeared most imminently impending. Fortunately, before this crisis, one of her yesterday's partners came up to the rescue, and did duty both for himself and Walter.

Now, if he had been so minded, he might have stolen away and relieved his oppressed soul from the shackles of society. But in the morning he had had occasion to find out, that the tangle of his ideas grew worse in solitude. And besides, he felt irresistibly rivetted to Helen's presence, with chains he could not break. He kept an anxious watch over every gesture, every look, every word, that might possibly throw some light on his chances of really losing her.

He too had lived on heedlessly by her side, without ever asking himself, how long this state of things was to last--What they called the feeling that united them--so long as they _had_ it, what cared he? From the time he could remember anything, or anybody, after the mother that bore him, Helen had been the person most essential to his existence.

And the last few years, that had brought him to the age of manhood and independence, had only served to strengthen the closeness and confidence of their relations. In the same proportion as he had grown beyond her guidance in commoner things, he came more eagerly to seek it in every thing that perplexed his head or heart. What she had been to him;--sister, mother, friend, play-fellow--grave or gay, the companion of every hour--he had no name for it. Indeed, he had never thought of naming it: with regard to her, the terms handsome--charming--least of all dangerous--had no sense for him; she was herself, and that was all he cared for.

And now he was suddenly to reconcile himself to the perception, that she was a woman like other women, creating passions;--attracting men, awakening jealous rivalry. The idea seemed so preposterous, that he felt as if his own life had become strange to him. Only last night, when she had told him of her first love, he had listened, as he had done when they used to tell each other fairy tales, and expound each other's dreams--and now these most inconceivable realities had to be accepted as facts--one man had been a suitor for her hand; another had been silently rejected by her.--Would these last pretensions find no favor in her eyes?--and if they did?--How insupportable he found the torture, when he tried to think of her as the wife of any man living. In his unsullied soul, there arose an indefinable sensation of wrong and shame, that ran through his veins like liquid fire. He would have given his life to shield her from a look; and when he recalled the coarseness of his comrade's words, he involuntarily clenched his fist. And yet, while he was walking behind her now, he could not take his eyes from her. For the first time, he observed the grace of every movement; he silently compared the classical lines of her neck and shoulders, to the massive shapelessness of the elder lady, and the insignificant prettiness of her little daughter. His eyes were opened, and they saw her graceful walk, and the way she placed her slender feet; and--when she turned to speak to her companion--the regularity of her clearly cut profile, seen in the relief of her dark bonnet; and then the glitter of her white teeth, when her lips parted, as they often did, without a smile, but with a pensive and rather lofty look, that was in keeping with the deep low tones of her voice.

Indeed she never smiled, unless when she was talking to him; this discovery rewarded him for his eager watchfulness, when she was talking to other men. She _did_ love him best; there could be no doubt of that. Why then tolerate the attentions of a stranger, if he was to be nothing more?

Thus he questioned himself, in his perplexity; when the perception suddenly flashed upon him, that after all, if she _did_ feel youthfully enough to begin life afresh, he certainly had no business to prevent her--What compensation had he to offer her? Was it not the idea of a maniac, to suppose that she was to go on for ever, sacrificing her life to his; waiting upon him so long as he should think fit to go on calling her his little mother, and keep dangling by her apron-string?

When they came to the coffee-garden, they found there was a band in the saloon of the house, playing valses, and summoning the younger among the loungers to go in and dance them; an impromptu ball was soon arranged. The elders sat in the sunshine before the windows, occasionally turning their heads from their coffee-cups, to look round at the dancing vortex within, and see how their young people were amusing themselves.

Lottchen had asked and obtained her mother's permission to join the dancers, and now stood evidently waiting for Walter's assistance, to take advantage of it. But he rose, and pleading a bad headache, he walked away to escape from the noise and crowd; so with a sigh of undisguised regret, she saw herself forced to accept the offered arm of his more willing substitute.--

Helen saw what was going on but too plainly, and she had begun to divine that she herself might be the cause of Walter's change of spirits. How could he have heard of his adopted father's intentions? and if he _had_ heard of them, why should they so affect him?--The notion that jealousy could have any share in his vexation, never suggested itself to her mind for a moment. She wanted to talk it over frankly with him; only he had taken himself and his gloom for a solitary saunter, along the highroad, past the last detached houses, towards the open country, perfectly insensible to the charms of a lovely afternoon in early spring. He came to a halt before an ancient country-house long since deserted, and stood looking through the railings at the neglected garden--The dried-up basin of the fountain, that had long ceased to flow, was now filled up with decaying leaves and exuberant nettles.

A kneeling nymph in the scanty drapery of the French school, with her urn gently inclined, seemed bending over it, in melancholy contemplation of the weeds. It was a pretty little figure, and would have deserved a better fate. Now the sparrows made a perch of her polished shoulders, and the wreath upon her head was crumbling into dust. What kept Walter standing there so long, on the spot from which he could best see the contours of that figure as they stood out against the darkness of the grotto?

A measure or two of the merry music swept past him, borne on the evening wind; he looked as if he were waiting for the lonely beauty to rise to her feet, and come towards him. He could not tire of gazing on those slender lines of beauty, which many a time before, he had passed without even seeing, for all his artist eye--and now they seemed to haunt him; he began to feel uneasy; he tore himself away, and heaving a deep sigh, he thoughtfully retraced his steps.

He arrived just in time to see his party break up, but he did not join it. He followed at a distance, keeping his eye upon it.

This time, mother and daughter walked in front, with Lottchen's partner; while Helen and Dr. Hansen followed. He saw that she spoke kindly to him, and fancied he could see that the lawyer no longer doubted the fulfilment of his wishes. Now he even saw her laugh, at something her suitor said.

Their way home took them past the house where Dr. Hansen lived; they stopped before it, and he pointed upwards, and said something, to which she returned no answer; but her eyes followed the direction of his hand, and then they both walked on, as it appeared, in a graver mood.

Their distant watcher concluded that all was settled, and a feeling of unutterable wretchedness overcame him. He stopped, and tried to think where he was, and whither he was going?--He did not know, and he did not care--Anywhere!--Only not to that home where he should inevitably have to face her.

One of his former play-fellows came past, and found him standing; they exchanged a few words, which ended in Walter's accepting an invitation to take a glass of wine with him, and, arm in arm, the two young men walked away, and turned down another street.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, conversing on indifferent subjects, the others had reached the Meister's door; and here the women separated; but the lawyer remained standing upon the threshold, as if he found it quite impossible to part from Helen in this uncertainty.

She had looked round, more than once, for Walter, whose absence disquieted her; she was not so entirely absorbed, however, in this anxiety, as to forget the feelings of her present companion. She, too, desired that they might come to an explication.

"This morning, my brother-in-law told me what you had confided to him." she began, in a calm tone, but not with any coldness; "I have to thank you for all the kindness and regard, which I acknowledge to be the motives of the wishes you expressed to him. I have always entertained a high consideration for you, and taken pleasure in your society. But my life does not admit of any farther change. I do not wish to form any other ties. I shall be quite contented if I may continue the old ones; and have none of them prematurely broken. I owe you this frank explanation, and I hope it will not lower me in your esteem."

He turned white, and some time passed before he spoke; "You will not send me away without one ray of hope; may I never be any more to you?--Ah! do not say that this is your only answer!"

"Indeed it must be. I should be very sorry to deceive myself, or you."

"And is there nothing else to part us, save your own disinclination to change your present life?"

"My present life is enough for me;"--and she reddened slightly. "And I find its duties sufficiently absorbing. Besides--but let us say no more; my reasons are my own, and you may be convinced that I should oppose no trifling ones. Give up this idea, I beg--indeed, it would not be for your happiness."

She did not finish, for she saw that he did not listen; he bowed low, and turned away, and left her without another look.

His whole manner had surprised and touched her; for worlds she would not have given this earnest man the reasons that she had used against her brother-in-law. She stood at the door awhile, and looked down the street, to see if Walter was not coming home.

The night had quite closed in; a mild warm night like midsummer. She could scarcely say why she felt so strangely loath to go into the house.

At last she went upstairs, without first going into the Meister's room to bid him good night, though she heard him hobbling about, in evident expectation of her coming in to give him an account of what had passed. But she longed to be alone; and the moment she reached her room, she drew the bolt after her, and lightened her bosom with a few deep drawn sighs. It was so dark, that she groped about some time before she could find her matchbox, which was not in its proper place. Altogether, she thought, some one must have been there, and disturbed the method of her usual arrangements. At last she found her lamp; but before she had lighted it, a musing mood came over her, to which she found the darkness most congenial.

She went to the window, and leaning her brow against the cool glass, she tried to live over the last few hours.

Here, on this very spot, she had poured forth her whole heart in a torrent of tears. Now she felt it aching still, but there was a sweetness in the pain.

She now foresaw that from year to year she would become lonelier and more alone, and that at last she _would_ have to give up the only being she loved. But her affection for him--_that_ she felt, nothing ever could oblige her to give up. Even if he could be happy without her, she, at least, never could care for any happiness that severed them.

On reflection, she became more composed; nay, cheerful. She began to long for his return, that they might have a quiet evening together like the last.

All at once, she heard a sound quite close to her, she thought it might be he, and that she had overheard his step in the next room.

"Is it you, night-rover that you are, Sir?"

No answer--yet she felt certain that she had not mistaken. She listened with sharpened attention; again that suppressed sound. "Who is there?" she called out, with a leaping heart. Still no answer!--She went to the table to light her lamp; suddenly a dark shadow was at her side, and a nimble hand stopped hers, as she was about to strike a light. She was not much startled:

"What are you doing here, Walter?" she said, drawing back; "how did you get in? I thought I had bolted the door.--God in Heaven!" she shrieked. "Peter Lars!--how is this!--What brings you here?"

It was so dark that she could not have recognised him; except for a peculiar trick which he had, and she hated; a hoarse way of breathing audibly.

And now she could distinguish the outline of his figure, and involuntarily retreated towards the door; but with one bound, he had intercepted it--

"Don't be frightened, Mamsell Helene," he said, with an ugly nervous laugh; "I mean no harm. It is not, to be sure, that darling poppet, our young man, who rules the house. It is only the vermin, Peter Lars, that creeping, crawling worm. But a worm won't hurt you, if you don't crush it, and unless you really mean to set that pretty foot of yours upon my ugly head, and--"

"What do you mean by taking such a liberty?" she interrupted him, with a show of self-possession: "Who ever gave you leave to come here, into my room to make a scene? I should have imagined you to be sufficiently aware of my opinion of you."

"Exactly so," he sneered. "It is precisely because I _am_ aware of it, my very dear Mamsell, that I desire to know the reason of it, and what I ever did to vex you. And as you never yet have done me so much honor as to speak to me when we meet elsewhere, I took the liberty of waiting for an interview here. If you should vouchsafe to tell me that I am drunk, allow me to tell _you_ that you are wrong. I give you my word I have not drunk a drop more than I found necessary to untie my tongue. Pluck, you know, my dear young lady, is a thing a man never can have too much of; and now I have enough to ask you what you are pleased to object to in my humble person. Eh! we are so cosy here, quite by ourselves--couldn't you be a trifle kinder? Or have you really no kindness left for Peter Lars? Have you been so lavish to your own sweet poppet, and to that precious quilldriver, your new betrothed? Have you nothing to say to a fine young fellow like myself, an aspiring artist, who is, without bravado, worth ten of such?"

"Be silent, sir, and leave the room this instant!" commanded Helen. "Not another word! and you may thank the wine you have drunk, if this insolence--"

"Oho! fair lady, softly! you will be ready to come down a peg or two in a moment; after all, we are two to one, myself and my wine; and when my pluck is up--not to speak of my love, and I adore you--Nay," he added in a lower voice, "I would not harm you for the world. I really had no bad intentions. If you had not been so stupid as to spoil my sport, and find me out before it was time, I should have let you go to bed in peace. I meant to have crept out after I had made sure that you could not possibly escape me, nor shirk the answers to a question or two I have to ask. I do assure you, proud Mamsell, I have the greatest regard for you--quite a respect--and for all my pluck, if I do stand here to keep you from the door, it is only because--"

He did not see the dangerous light in her eyes; her silence and apparent impassiveness misled him.