Ships That Pass in the Night Part 19

"Then _you_ cannot understand," Catharina said almost proudly. "But _I_ understand!"

She spoke no more after that, but took up her knitting, and watched Bernardine playing with the kittens. She was playing with the kittens, and she was thinking; and all the time she felt conscious that this peasant woman, stricken in mind and body, was pitying her because that great happiness of loving and being loved had not come into her life.

It had seemed something apart from her; she had never even wanted it.

She had wished to stand alone, like a little rock out at sea.

And now?

In a few minutes the Disagreeable Man and she sat down to their meal.

In spite of her excitement, Liza managed to prepare everything nicely; though when she was making the omelette _aux fines herbes_, she had to be kept guarded lest she might run off to have another look at the silver watch and the photographs of herself in her finest frock!

Then Bernardine and Robert Allitsen drank to the health of Hans and Liza: and then came the time of reckoning. When he was paying the bill, Frau Steinhart, having given him the change, said coaxingly:

"Last time, you and Fraulein each paid a share: to-day you pay all. Then perhaps you are betrothed at last, dear Herr Allitsen? Ach, how the old Hausfrau wishes you happiness! Who deserves to be happy, if it is not our dear Herr Allitsen?"

"You have given me twenty centimes too much," he said quietly. "You have your head so full of other things that you cannot reckon properly."

But seeing that she looked troubled lest she might have offended him, he added quickly:

"When I am betrothed, good little old housemother, you shall be the first to know."

And she had to be content with that. She asked no more questions of either of them: but she was terribly disappointed. There was something a little comical in her disappointment; but Robert Allitsen was not amused at it, as he had been on a former occasion. As he leaned back in the sledge, with the same girl for his companion, he recalled his feelings. He had been astonished and amused, and perhaps a little shy, and a great deal relieved that she had been sensible enough to be amused too.

And now?

They had been constantly together for many months: he who had never cared before for companions.h.i.+p, had found himself turning more and more to her.

_And now he was going to lose her_.

He looked up once or twice to make sure that she was still by his side: she sat there so quietly. At last he spoke in his usual gruff way.

"Have you exhausted all your eloquence in your oration about learned women?" he asked.

"No, I am reserving it for a better audience," she answered, trying to be bright. But she was not bright.

"I believe you came out to the country to day to seek for cheerfulness,"

he said after a pause. "Have you found it?"

"I do not know," she said. "It takes me some time to recover from shocks; and Mr. Reffold's death was a sorrow to me. What do you think about death? Have you any theories about life and death, and the bridge between them? Could you say anything to help one?"

"Nothing," he answered. "Who could? And by what means?"

"Has there been no value in philosophy," she asked, "and the meditations of learned men?"

"Philosophy!" he sneered. "What has it done for us? It has taught us some processes of the mind's working; taught us a few wonderful things which interest the few; but the centuries have come and gone, and the only thing which the whole human race pants to know, remains unknown: our beloved ones, shall we meet them, and how?--the great secret of the universe. We ask for bread, and these philosophers give us a stone.

What help could come from them: or from any one? Death is simply one of the hard facts of life."

"And the greatest evil," she said.

"We weave our romances about the next world," he continued; "and any one who has a fresh romance to relate, or an old one dressed up in new language, will be listened to, and welcomed. That helps some people for a little while; and when the charm of the romance is over, then they are ready for another, perhaps more fantastic than the last. But the plot is always the same: our beloved ones--shall we meet them, and how?

Isn't it pitiful? Why cannot we be more impersonal? These puny, petty minds of ours! When will they learn to expand?"

"Why should we learn to be more impersonal?" she said. "There was a time when I felt like that; but now I have learnt something better: that we need not be ashamed of being human; above all, of having the best of human instincts, love, and the pa.s.sionate wish for its continuance, and the unceasing grief at its withdrawal. There is no indignity in this; nor any trace of weakmindedness in our restless craving to know about the Hereafter, and the possibilities of meeting again those whom we have lost here. It is right, and natural, and lovely that it should be the most important question. I know that many will say that there _are_ weightier questions: they say so, but do they think so? Do we want to know first and foremost whether we shall do our work better elsewhere: whether we shall be endowed with more wisdom: whether, as poor Mr. Reffold said, we shall be glad to behave less like curs, and more like heroes? These questions come in, but they can be put aside. The other question can _never_ be put on one side. If that were to become possible, it would only be so because the human heart had lost the best part of itself, its own humanity. We shall go on building our bridge between life and death, each one for himself. When we see that it is not strong enough, we shall break it down and build another. We shall watch other people building their bridges. We shall imitate, or criticise, or condemn. But as time goes on, we shall learn not to interfere, we shall know that one bridge is probably as good as the other; and that the greatest value of them all has been in the building of them. It does not matter what we build, but build we must: you, and I, and every one."

"I have long ceased to build my bridge," the Disagreeable Man said.

"It is an almost unconscious process," she said. "Perhaps you are still at work, or perhaps you are resting."

He shrugged his shoulders, and the two comrades fell into silence again.

They were within two miles of Petershof, when he broke the silence: there was something wonderfully gentle in his voice.

"You little thing," he said, "we are nearing home, and I have something to ask you. It is easier for me to ask here in the free open country, where the s.p.a.ce seems to give us breathing room for our cramped lungs and minds!"

"Well," she said kindly; she wondered what he could have to say.

"I am a little nervous of offending you," he continued, "and yet I trust you. It is only this. You said you had come to the end of your money, and that you must go home. It seems a pity when you are getting better.

I have so much more than I need. I don't offer it to you as a gift, but I thought if you wished to stay longer, a loan from me would not be quite impossible to you. You could repay as quickly or as slowly as was convenient to you, and I should only be grateful and" . . . .

He stopped suddenly.

The tears had gathered in Bernardine's eyes her hand rested for one moment on his arm.

"Mr. Allitsen," she said, "you did well to trust me. But I could not borrow money of any one, unless I was obliged. If I could of any one, it would have been of you. It is not a month ago since I was a little anxious about money; my remittances did not come. I thought then that if obliged to ask for temporary help, I should come to you: so you see if you have trusted me, I, too, have trusted you."

A smile pa.s.sed over the Disagreeable Man's face, one of his rare, beautiful smiles.

"Supposing you change your mind," he said quietly, "you will not find that I have changed mine."

Then a few minutes brought them back to Petershof.

CHAPTER XVIII.

A BETROTHAL.

HE had loved her so patiently, and now he felt that he must have his answer. It was only fair to her, and to himself too, that he should know exactly where he stood in her affections. She had certainly given him little signs here and there, which had made him believe that she was not indifferent to his admiration. Little signs were all very well for a short time; but meanwhile the season was coming to an end: she had told him that she was going back to her work at home. And then perhaps he would lose her altogether. It would not be safe now for him to delay a single day longer. So the little postman armed himself with courage.

Warli's brain was muddled that day. He who prided himself upon knowing the names of all the guests in Petershof, made the most absurd mistakes about people and letters too; and received in acknowledgment of his stupidity a series of scoldings which would have unnerved a stronger person than the little hunchback postman.

In fact, he ceased to care how he gave out the letters: all the envelopes seemed to have the same name on them: _Marie Truog_. Every word which he tried to decipher turned to that; so finally he tried no more, leaving the destination of the letter to be decided by the impulse of the moment. At last he arrived at that quarter of the Kurhaus where Marie held sway. He heard her singing in her pantry.

Suddenly she was summoned downstairs by an impatient bellringer, and on her return found Warli waiting in the pa.s.sage.

"What a goose you are!" she cried, throwing a letter at him; "you have left the wrong letter at No. 82."

Then some one else rang, and Marie hurried off again. She came back with another letter in her hand, and found Warli sitting in her pantry.