The Song Of Songs Part 119

Unsuspecting spirits might believe that a similar costume was to be had everywhere from San Francisco to St. Petersburg, from Cape Town to Christiania for two hundred marks.

She had wisely refrained from wearing any jewellery, except the thin gold chain which she was wont to wear next to her skin. It encircled her high collar in maidenly modesty.

She looked like a young n.o.blewoman who has been held in strict seclusion, and who is taking her first look into the great world with shy, inquiring eyes.

His uncle had a.s.signed the seat on her right side to Konrad, and kept the place nearest the door for himself.

The instant he took his seat at table he began to feel somewhat in his element.

He uttered hoa.r.s.e e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns and gave orders and was dissatisfied with everything.

"See here, boy," he said to the waiter, who was placing the _hors-d'oeuvres_ on the table, "do you call that the right kind of a carafe for port wine? Don't you know that if port wine doesn't sparkle in the carafe, it takes away your thirst?"

The waiter, intimidated by his snarling, wanted to go off in search of another carafe, but Mr. Rennschmidt declared he could not wait, he needed a "starter."

"I'm still a little constrained," he said apologetically. "I'm not accustomed to a.s.sociating with such beautiful and ungracious ladies."

Lilly felt a p.r.i.c.k at her heart.

She met a reproachful look from her lover, which seemed to say:

"You mustn't be so dumb. You must be agreeable to him."

In the same mute language Lilly humbly implored his forgiveness.

"I can't. You speak for me."

In his anxiety Konrad began to converse as if he had been paid for entertaining them. He described the collection of antiques in his uncle's castle on the Rhine, touched upon the compet.i.tion of the Americans, and, pa.s.sing on to the subject of art in Italy, discussed the harmful effects of the Lex Pacca, and goodness knows what else.

It was a highly illuminating little discourse, which his uncle seemed to follow with moderate interest, while squinting at Lilly and smacking his lips from time to time over a piece of canned tunny. Then Mr.

Rennschmidt said:

"All very true and edifying, my son. But couldn't you also impart some valuable information as to the state of the whiskey in this place?"

Konrad jumped up to pull the bell rope, but his uncle restrained him.

"Stop--stop--stop. This is my affair.... Here's the port for you....

After all a beautiful woman is a beautiful woman, even if she belongs to others. Here's to you, beautiful woman."

That sounded like mockery. Did he wish to make sport of her before repulsing her?

"In fact," he continued, addressing Lilly, "permit me to congratulate you. You've already worked a perceptible change in him. I see he already dances beautifully to your tune, eh?"

Whether or no, she had to say something in reply.

"I don't play tunes, and he doesn't dance," she said, making a mighty effort to pull herself together. "We're not free enough for that."

"Aha, there's one straight from the shoulder for me," he laughed, but his laugh sounded resentful.

"Lilly didn't mean any harm," Konrad interjected, coming to her rescue.

"And really, we are not having an easy time of it. If Lilly hadn't helped me every day with her sweet comprehension, I don't think my strength would have held out."

"All very well and good--or--or, or all very deplorable. But your old uncle hasn't gotten even a look from her--as advance payment on our future relations.h.i.+p."

"Oh, if that's all," thought Lilly.

And raising her gla.s.s to touch his, she tried to thank him for his having come around with a little coquettish shamefaced smile.

It filled him with evident satisfaction. He twisted his pointed beard and ogled her confidentially with his leering eyes as if to extract from her a sign of secret understanding.

"Thank goodness! Maybe he's not so dreadful after all," she thought. She drew a breath of relief as she felt the chains of her embarra.s.sment loosening a bit.

When the waiter returned, a grave discussion arose between him and Mr.

Rennschmidt as to the brands of whiskey the hotel had to offer. It was a long parley and debate, ending in a call for the hotel-keeper himself, who went down into the cellar to hunt up a bottle he thought he must have somewhere with the label of a certain famous house and the date of a certain famous year.

At length Mr. Rennschmidt was ready again to bestow his attention upon his beautiful niece to be.

"I'm a sort of barnswallow. I built my nest of mud and such stuff. I traded in guano, train-oil, Australian blennies, pitch, and other more or less unclean things. So you can't blame me for wis.h.i.+ng to recuperate by devoting myself to appetizing objects, such as you, my ungracious lady. All I wish is a little attention in return."

"Oh dear," thought Lilly. "I'll be impertinent for once." So she said: "Mr. Rennschmidt, you know I'm sitting here like a poor, trembling student going up for the examinations. I beg of you"--she raised her clasped hands--"don't play with me like a cat with a mouse."

She had struck the right note.

"Is she opening her mouth at last?" he cried beaming. "And she has a wonderful little snout, Konrad, one of those mice snouts with long teeth, in which the upper lip says to the lower lip, 'If you don't come and kiss, I'll run away.' Isn't it so, Konrad, you stupid fellow, eh?"

Lilly had to laugh heartily, and the _entente cordiale_ was finally concluded.

And for a moment Konrad's dear tired face brightened with a smile of rea.s.surance which expanded her heart as with a heaven-sent reward. She loved him so dearly she could have thrown herself at his uncle's feet for his sake. With a rising sense of triumph she thought:

"_Now_ he shall see how agreeable I can be to that old horror."

And indeed to make herself agreeable proved to be not so very excessive a task. When she looked at the old man with his round, crumpled roguish face, his darting, sly little grey eyes, and the fine, wavy, snow-white diplomat's wig--it actually was a wig, sharply defined on his forehead and brushed forward into locks over his ears--she felt more and more strongly that he was an old acquaintance with whom she had many a time played pranks and to whom the recollection of those pranks secretly bound her.

Yet, surely, she had never met him before.

Despite his proletarian exterior his a.s.sured manner breathed an air of gentlemanliness. And the way he constructed the menu was really wonderful. The sixty-eight-year-old Steinbergerkabinett, which looked like amber-coloured oil when he poured it into the Rhine wine gla.s.ses, suited the blue trout as perfectly as if it were its native element. And the next course, the sweetbread patties _a la Montgelas_, was worthy of what had gone before. Neither Richard nor any member of the crew was so skilled in the epicurean art as he.

If only he had not kept tossing off one gla.s.s of whiskey after the other.

"My brain has been dulled by long money-making, like a nail hammered on cast-iron," he said in self-justification. "I must whet it every now and then, or else it'll get as dull as the edge of a tombstone."

When the Roman punch was served, a brief but hot discussion arose as to the merits of certain American drinks from which Lilly, with her knowledge of the whole range of beverages, came out with flying colours.

She even knew accurately the ingredients of Mr. Rennschmidt's favourite mixture, the "South Sea bowl," a fiery concoction of sherry, cognac, angostura bitters, the yolks of eggs, and Chateau d'Yquem--in case of emergency Moselle might be used. She ventured to ask, might she not prepare the rare mixture for him after dinner; she could do it so expertly that he would have to admit he had not drunk anything more delicious between Singapore and Melbourne.

Konrad, who had evidently never suspected her talents in this line, listened to her with an astonishment which filled her with pride.

She sent him one furtive look after another, which asked: