The Song Of Songs Part 41

The colonel found no formula for such symptoms in his store of experiences. Had Lilly gone about downcast, staring dreamily into s.p.a.ce, had she crept about him timidly, had she wavered between ardour and estrangement, his suspicions would have grown lively. He would have begun to sound and spy on her. But it was not in his power to discern aught else than increased spiritual well-being in her pliable, blissful tenderness.

So he smirked complacently at the harmless gaiety his young wife radiated, and with paternal calm accepted the lavish caresses, which served as an outlet for her overwrought ecstasy.

Anna von Schwertfeger shared no less benevolently in Lilly's happiness.

She seemed to harbour as little suspicion as the colonel that a third person was playing a part in her life. Otherwise she would scarcely have viewed the growing frequency with which the two young people met with such unbegrudging kindliness.

Often after supper she drew Lilly into the room on the ground floor, where she dwelt amid her account books. A genuine old maid's home, with canary birds, flower pots, faded family photographs, and all sorts of gilt and china knick-knacks, remnants of past glory such as are handed down from generation to generation in families of decayed gentlefolk.

At other times she came gliding into Lilly's bedroom at an incredibly late hour, seated herself on the edge of the bed, and did not stir until she heard the sound of the colonel's carriage coming from the station.

The two women would plunge into profound conversations concerning life and death, solitary old age and overflowing youth, the measure G.o.d has set for each mortal, and the misfortune of trying to exceed that measure. Anna von Schwertfeger no longer pried or warned, yet her fas.h.i.+on of hopping from subject to subject, of heedlessly expressing an opinion the very reverse of one she had uttered a moment before, seemed sufficient reason for supposing that her mind was occupied with very, very different things.

Often while her speech flowed on monotonously Lilly would be astonished to look up and find her eyes resting on her intently, almost apprehensively. Then again Lilly would feel herself stroked and kissed with such pitying inwardliness that she herself was touched, and later, when left alone, she began to feel afraid of the dark, as if a menacing fate were crouching at the bottom of her bed ready to pounce on her and choke her.

But from where was misfortune to drop on her? Wasn't she more securely stowed away than ever before in her life? Whom did she deceive? Wherein did she sin? Even if the few little secrets binding her to Walter should be discovered, how would she be punished? She would simply get a fine sermon like a naughty child, nothing worse.

Thus she comforted herself before the aftertaste of Miss von Schwertfeger's late visits was dispelled by new dreams of happiness.

September neared its end.

Lilly went horseback riding with Von Prell almost every day, or she met him at twilight, as if by chance, in deserted parts of the park. They would spy each other strolling about some one of the various places they had fixed upon once for all. Then there was the pea-shooter to fall back upon in case different arrangements had to be made.

Von Prell had brought the convenient instrument from the city, and it reposed innocently in a corner of Lilly's balcony, to all appearances nothing more than a superfluous curtain-rod. It enabled her to blow whatever message she wanted through the foliage on the balcony directly into his open window.

Sometimes it was only "Good morning, comrade," sometimes the hour of meeting, or sometimes a harmless jest, the outgrowth of a moment's exuberance.

On the evenings the colonel remained at home Von Prell was usually invited to supper. Though he then a.s.sumed his according-to-rules-and-regulations stiffness, the opportunity for a little byplay was now always afforded.

Neither Lilly nor Von Prell moved a muscle and the two High Mightinesses sat there unsuspecting.

But Lilly had a rival whom she feared and detested, because that rival had the power to draw her "comrade's" attention from her for hours at a time. The mere mention of the rival's name sufficed to reduce Lilly to the position of nothing but a lay figure. The rival was--the regiment.

The time of the autumn manoeuvres had come, and both gentlemen read the papers with feverish interest to see what part was being taken by their former regiment.

One evening they sent off a picture postal with congratulations to the regiment. Two days later the reply came, also on a postal, all scribbled over with names which it required a vast effort to decipher.

Three remained illegible, or, rather, inexplicable, until all of a sudden Walter lit upon the solution: Von Holten, Dehnicke, Von Berg, summer lieutenants, who had been called into service for the manoeuvres and had signed their names along with the other officers.

All but one of the names fell upon Lilly's ear unheeded. "Dehnicke"

struck her as a little odd, because its bourgeois simplicity did not seem to chime in well with the ringing charm of the old patrician names.

The greeting from out of his past had no benign influence on the colonel's mood. He grew taciturn, then surly; and Lilly caught a sidelong glance of his fixed on her, which caused her to start in terror, it was so wildly, fiercely reproachful.

Thereafter his visits to the neighbouring garrison town grew more frequent, and despite his painful gout he never refused an invitation to join a hunt.

It was the first Sunday in October.

The colonel had left at dawn to go to a neighbour with the intention of not returning until late at night.

A soft grey mist shot with violet suggestions of the sun lay over the ground when Lilly, bored and writhing internally, came out of church on Miss von Schwertfeger's arm.

The sunflowers in the tenants' gardens were already sinking their singed heads and the asters showed signs of having suffered from the murderous blows of Jack Frost.

But the air was as sweet and spicy as in spring, and from the fields came a singing as of meadow larks.

"Such a day, such a day!" thought Lilly, and stretched herself in a vague yearning for secret conversation and glad pranks.

She must have thought a little too loud, for Miss von Schwertfeger asked:

"What's the matter with to-day?"

"I don't know," replied Lilly, blus.h.i.+ng. "I feel as if it were some festival."

Miss von Schwertfeger looked at her askance and said, emphasising each word:

"I should like to make a festival of it for myself and visit a friend of mine in the city. But the colonel is away and I don't know--"

Lilly started so violently that she lost her breath for an instant. But she mastered herself cleverly and began to persuade Miss von Schwertfeger, first speaking coolly, then more warmly and urgently. She needed a little outing; she hadn't left the place all summer; she lived like a prisoner, and ought to grant herself at least one hour of freedom.

Miss von Schwertfeger nodded meditatively, and that gla.s.sy stare came into her eyes which always discomfited Lilly.

At the midday meal, which the two took in each other's company, she was still undecided; but as soon as they rose from table she ordered the carriage to be brought around and drove off without saying good-by.

Lilly, who watched her departure, ran for the pea-shooter. The foliage of the creepers still hedged in her little domain so perfectly that Von Prell could not see her. But she could see him as he sat at the open window brooding over a book with a deep fold between his brows.

"My good influence," thought Lilly triumphantly, and it almost made her feel sorry to tear him away from so salutary an occupation.

The inspector and the bookkeeper were walking up and down near the lodge smoking their Sunday afternoon cigarettes.

So more than ordinary caution was necessary.

The pellet containing her missive hit Von Prell's forehead, rebounded, and fell on the gra.s.s outside the window.

Von Prell had himself so well in hand that he even refrained from looking up to show he understood. After a while, however, he let the book fall out of the window as if by accident, and then got up to fetch it with an indifferent air.

Half an hour later they met behind the carp pond.

He was wearing a new black and white checked fall suit, similar to the one the fateful stranger in the railroad train had worn.

"You're entirely too elegant," Lilly joked. "I'd rather not be in your company to-day."

"That would be a sin and a shame," he observed. "I had these trappings constructed extra for to-day."

"Why for to-day?"

"Because to-day's our festival."