The Song Of Songs Part 40

"Whatever my lady wishes."

"Call me comrade."

"Once or always?"

"Always."

"Just _say_ comrade, or be comrade, too?"

"Be, be, be," she cried. "The being is the chief thing."

"Agreed!" he said, cautiously sliding his right hand along the swaying trunk.

"Agreed!" she said, and they shook hands on it.

"There's something else to be pa.s.sed upon in connection with this," he observed, and cleared his throat.

"What's that?"

"Is this comrades.h.i.+p to be accompanied or not to be accompanied by the use of the first name?"

"Not," rejoined Lilly, thinking she had made a great sacrifice.

He took the prohibition at its face value and said obediently:

"As my comrade wishes."

Now her time had come. Lilly drew in a deep breath and said:

"I have something very serious to say to you, Mr. Von Prell."

He seemed to suspect evil.

"Ouch," he said, and bit his gloved thumb.

Lilly began. She would say absolutely nothing about that affair with Katie, even though it was very dreadful, because what is to be forgiven must also be forgotten. But if he thought the life he had been leading ever since he had come to Lischnitz had remained a secret, he was greatly mistaken. Even the scrubbing women laughed at him behind his back. But he couldn't expect anything else, if he--and she recounted the list of his sins, which, in spite of herself, had reached her ears from the servants' hall.

Lilly was ashamed of what she said. She had meant to speak of entirely different things--of the loftiness of human existence, of the greatness of self-abnegation, of keeping oneself pure for the sake of genuine feelings, of the mysterious spiritual union of the elect on earth, and much more in the same strain. But when she saw him, as he sat there with his back curved and his feet turned inward, causing bulbs to appear and disappear on the soft leather of his riding boots where they covered his big toes, nothing better occurred to her.

He did not interrupt her.

When she had concluded he maintained silence and occupied himself with following the movements of an insect which was wriggling in the dark, slimy water of the ditch.

"Have you nothing to say," she asked, "after I have reproached you with such disgraceful behaviour?"

"What should I have to say?" he asked in turn. "My one claim to celebrity is my being a man utterly devoid of moral fibre. Should I lose that one claim, too?"

"If you have nothing within yourself to hold you up, lean on me," she cried, glowing with eagerness. "Let me be your friend, your adviser, your--"

"Foster-father," he suggested, and swished about the slime with his crop.

She realised that everything she said was lost on him; that he even seized whatever opportunity offered to make merry at her expense.

"Please get up and let me by," she said. "Why should I cast what is best in me before one who is unworthy?"

He made no movement to leave his seat.

"Look, comrade," he said, pointing to the dark, mirror-like surface of the water. "A water spider is gliding about there all the time with its legs up and its head down. If you were to ask it why, it would say it doesn't know how to glide differently. That's its nature. What's to be done?"

"A man can restrain himself," she cried, flaring up and casting indignant glances at him. "A man can look up to heights, to an ideal. He can listen to the advice of a friend who means well by him--that's what he can do."

"And what does his friend advise?" he asked flatteringly, while swinging himself nearer.

But this time she did not answer. She covered her face with her hands and cried, cried so that her body shook with sobs.

"For G.o.d's sake, sit still," he exclaimed, stretching his arms about her in a wide circle, for she was in danger of losing her balance on the slim, swaying trunk of the mountain-ash. "Do sit still, Lilly, else you'll fall into the water."

She shuddered. She heard nothing of what he said except that sweet, secret, criminal "Lilly," for which she had been longing the whole week.

Then he promised her everything she wanted of him. He wouldn't run after any more servant girls, he wouldn't spend nights boozing with the inspector and the bookkeeper, he wouldn't--oh, what wouldn't he do, if only she stopped crying.

"Your word of honour?" she said, raising her wet, reddened eyes.

"My word of honour," he replied without an instant's hesitation.

She smiled at him, happy and grateful.

"You won't regret it," she said. "I'll be close at hand, I'll be your friend, I will do whatever I can."

"And whatever the two High Mightinesses permit," he added.

This time the epithet "High Mightinesses" did not annoy her. She shrugged her shoulders and said: "Oh, they--yes, of course."

Then they both laughed till they came near falling into the ditch after all.

CHAPTER XX

Delightful times followed. A game of hide-and-seek with herself, a long-drawn draught from an unfailing fount of expectancy, antic.i.p.ation, delicious aftertaste and joyous recollections. Each day brought new pleasures and untold wealth.

Sometimes when Lilly threw open the shutters in the morning and the fresh red September air flowed in over her she felt as if G.o.d had spread a mantle of sunny gold over the heavens to wrap both of them in, so snug and close that the whole world disappeared, leaving no one but themselves behind, pressed against each other in laughter and drunk with all that light.

She felt she was growing more beautiful from day to day and emanated a sort of radiance which caused all who met her to look up with a smile of astonishment and satisfaction, mingled, however, with a touch of melancholy, such as always comes over us when we see a human being or a flower developing too happily, too proudly for its glory to endure.

The two High Mightinesses did not keep their eyes closed, either.