The First Violin Part 6

His clothing was unremarkable--gray summer clothes, such as any gentleman or any shop-keeper might wear; only in scanning him no thought of shop-keeper came into my mind. His cap lay upon the table beside us, one of the little gray Studentenmutzen with which Elberthal soon made me familiar, but which struck me then as odd and outlandish. I grew every moment more interested in my scrutiny of this, to me, fascinating and remarkable face, and had forgotten to try to look as if I were not looking, when he looked up suddenly, without warning, with those bright, formidable eyes, which had already made me feel somewhat shy as I caught them fixed upon me.

"_Nun_, have you decided?" he asked, with a humorous look in his eyes, which he was too polite to allow to develop itself into a smile.

"I--oh, I beg your pardon!"

"You do not want to," he answered, in imperfect idiom. "But have you decided?"

"Decided what?"

"Whether I am to be trusted?"

"I have not been thinking about that," I said, uncomfortably, when to my relief the appearance of the waiter with preparations for a meal saved me further reply.

"What shall we call this meal?" he asked, as the waiter disappeared to bring the repast to the table. "It is too late for the _Mittagessen_, and too early for the _Abendbrod_. Can you suggest a name?"

"At home it would be just the time for afternoon tea."

"Ah, yes! Your English afternoon tea is very--" He stopped suddenly.

"Have you been in England?"

"This is just the time at which we drink our afternoon coffee in Germany," said he, looking at me with his impenetrably bright eyes, just as if he had never heard me. "When the ladies all meet together to talk scan--_O, behute!_ What am I saying?--to consult seriously upon important topics, you know. There are some low-minded persons who call the whole ceremony a Klatsch--Kaffeeklatsch. I am sure you and I shall talk seriously upon important subjects, so suppose we call this our Kaffeeklatsch, although we have no coffee to it."

"Oh, yes, if you like."

He put a piece of cutlet upon my plate, and poured yellow wine into my gla.s.s. Endeavoring to conduct myself with the dignity of a grown-up person and to show that I did know something, I inquired if the wine were hock.

He smiled. "It is not Hochheimer--not Rheinwein at all--he--no, it, you say--it is Moselle wine--'Doctor.'"

"Doctor?"

"Doctorberger; I do not know why so called. And a very good fellow too--so say all his friends, of whom I am a warm one. Try him."

I complied with the admonition, and was able to say that I liked Doctorberger. We ate and drank in silence for some little time, and I found that I was very hungry. I also found that I could not conjure up any real feeling of discomfort or uneasiness, and that the prospective scolding from Miss Hallam had no terrors in it for me. Never had I felt so serene in mind, never more at ease in every way, than now. I felt that this was wrong--bohemian, irregular, and not respectable, and tried to get up a little unhappiness about something. The only thing that I could think of was:

"I am afraid I am taking up your time. Perhaps you had some business which you were going to when you met me."

"My business, when I met you, was to catch the train to Elberthal, which was already gone, as you know. I shall not be able to fulfill my engagements for to-night, so it really does not matter. I am enjoying myself very much."

"I am very glad I did meet you," said I, growing more rea.s.sured as I found that my companion, though exceedingly polite and attentive to me, did not ask a question as to my business, my traveling companions, my intended stay or object in Elberthal--that he behaved as a perfect gentleman--one who is a gentleman throughout, in thought as well as in deed. He did not even ask me how it was that my friends had not waited a little for me, though he must have wondered why two people left a young girl, moneyless and ignorant, to find her way after them as well as she could. He took me as he found me, and treated me as if I had been the most distinguished and important of persons. But at my last remark he said, with the same odd smile which took me by surprise every time I saw it:

"The pleasure is certainly not all on your side, _mein Fraulein_. I suppose from that you have decided that I am to be trusted?"

I stammered out something to the effect that "I should be very ungrateful were I not satisfied with--with such a--" I stopped, looking at him in some confusion. I saw a sudden look flash into his eyes and over his face. It was gone again in a moment--so fleeting that I had scarce time to mark it, but it opened up a crowd of strange new impressions to me, and while I could no more have said what it was like the moment it was gone, yet it left two desires almost equally strong in me--I wished in one and the same moment that I had for my own peace of mind never seen him--and that I might never lose sight of him again: to fly from that look, to remain and encounter it. The tell-tale mirror in the corner caught my eye. At home they used sometimes to call me, partly in mockery, partly in earnest, "Bonny May." The sobriquet had hitherto been a mere shadow, a meaningless thing, to me. I liked to hear it, but had never paused to consider whether it were appropriate or not. In my brief intercourse with my venerable suitor, Sir Peter, I had come a little nearer to being actively aware that I was good-looking, only to anathematize the fact. Now, catching sight of my reflection in the mirror, I wondered eagerly whether I really were fair, and wished I had some higher authority to think so than the casual jokes of my sisters.

It did not add to my presence of mind to find that my involuntary glance to the mirror had been intercepted--perhaps even my motive guessed at--he appeared to have a frightfully keen instinct.

"Have you seen the Dom?" was all he said; but it seemed somehow to give a point to what had pa.s.sed.

"The Dom--what is the Dom?"

"The _Kolner Dom_; the cathedral."

"Oh, no! Oh, should we have time to see it?" I exclaimed. "How I should like it!"

"Certainly. It is close at hand. Suppose we go now."

Gladly I rose, as he did. One of my most ardent desires was about to be fulfilled--not so properly and correctly as might have been desired, but--yes, certainly more pleasantly than under the escort of Miss Hallam, grumbling at every groschen she had to unearth in payment.

Before we could leave our seclusion there came up to us a young man who had looked at us through the door and paused. I had seen him; had seen how he said something to a companion, and how the companion shook his head dissentingly. The first speaker came up to us, eyed me with a look of curiosity, and turning to my protector with a benevolent smile, said:

"Eugen Courvoisier! _Also hatte ich doch Recht!_"

I caught the name. The rest was of course lost upon me. Eugen Courvoisier? I liked it, as I liked him, and in my young enthusiasm decided that it was a very good name. The new-comer, who seemed as if much pleased with some discovery, and entertained at the same time, addressed some questions to Courvoisier, who answered him tranquilly but in a tone of voice which was very freezing; and then the other, with a few words and an unbelieving kind of laugh, said something about a _schone Geschichte_, and, with another look at me, went out of the coffee-room again.

We went out of the hotel, up the street to the cathedral. It was the first cathedral I had ever been in. The shock and the wonder of its grandeur took my breath away. When I had found courage to look round, and up at those awful vaults the roofs, I could not help crying a little. The vastness, coolness, stillness, and splendor crushed me--the great solemn rays of sunlight coming in slanting glory through the windows--the huge height--the impression it gave of greatness, and of a religious devotion to which we shall never again attain; of pure, n.o.ble hearts, and patient, skillful hands, toiling, but in a spirit that made the toil a holy prayer--carrying out the builder's thought--great thought greatly executed--all was too much for me, the more so in that while I felt it all I could not a.n.a.lyze it. It was a dim, indefinite wonder. I tried stealthily and in shame to conceal my tears, looking surrept.i.tiously at him in fear lest he should be laughing at me again.

But he was not. He held his cap in his hand--was looking with those strange, brilliant eyes fixedly toward the high altar, and there was some expression upon his face which I could not a.n.a.lyze--not the expression of a person for whom such a scene has grown or can grow common by custom--not the expression of a sight-seer who feels that he must admire; not my own first astonishment. At least he felt it--the whole grand scene, and I instinctively and instantly felt more at home with him than I had done before.

"Oh!" said I, at last, "if one could stay here forever, what would one grow to?"

He smiled a little.

"You find it beautiful?"

"It is the first I have seen. It is much more than beautiful."

"The first you have seen? Ah, well, I might have guessed that."

"Why? Do I look so countrified?" I inquired, with real interest, as I let him lead me to a little side bench, and place himself beside me. I asked in all good faith. About him there seemed such a cosmopolitan ease, that I felt sure he could tell me correctly how I struck other people--if he would.

"Countrified--what is that?"

"Oh, we say it when people are like me--have never seen anything but their own little village, and never had any adventures, and--"

"Get lost at railway stations, _und so weiter_. I don't know enough of the meaning of 'countrified' to be able to say if you are so, but it is easy to see that you--have not had much contention with the powers that be."

"Oh, I shall not be stupid long," said I, comfortably. "I am not going back home again."

"So!" He did not ask more, but I saw that he listened, and proceeded communicatively:

"Never. I have--not quarreled with them exactly, but had a disagreement, because--because--"

"Because?"

"They wanted me to--I mean, an old gentleman--no, I mean--"

"An old gentleman wanted you to marry him, and you would not," said he, with an odd twinkle in his eyes.

"Why, how can you know?"