The Song Of Songs Part 84

It would have to be a tutorship in a family, anywhere in the country, preferably with a minister of whose library he could avail himself.

"And round about the linden trees will bloom," thought Lilly, "and the wheat will wave in the breeze, and the cattle will wind their way to water."

She nearly cried with envy.

From that day on she worked industriously to satisfy his heart's desire.

She gave him money to insert advertis.e.m.e.nts in the _Kreuzzeitung_, wrote letters herself in reply to all sorts of offers, and asked her little circle of friends to do what they could for him.

All these transactions had to be carried on in secret to avoid attracting Richard's attention. Even so she had much to suffer from him these days.

He found her wanting in attentiveness to him; he rebuked her for being cold and loveless, and detected a hostile influence in her every word.

"That's probably what your intellectual friend says." "You should ask your brilliant scholar." Thus it went without cease.

One day the bomb exploded.

Despite his promise to have the maid announce him when strangers were present, Richard stepped into the dining-room while Lilly was at table with her girlhood friend. He had neither rung nor knocked, and a frown of revenge puckered his brow.

Lilly jumped from her seat, paling.

As if caught in guilt, Fritz Redlich also jumped up. He stood there awkward and sheepish, while the corner of his napkin slowly glided from his b.u.t.tonhole into his soup plate.

For a moment silence prevailed. Nothing but the t.i.ttering of the maid in the kitchen was to be heard.

"I beg pardon," said Richard in the same threatening manner. "I merely wanted to make sure how you are really getting along."

"Mr. Dehnicke, a good friend of mine--Mr. Redlich, my old friend," said Lilly.

Now Richard scrutinised his dread rival more closely--looked in amazement and disapproval at the rank growth of his beard and s.h.a.ggy mane--his gaze travelled downwards--and brightened--a nonplussed look, but also a joyous look of recognition, betrayed itself in his features.

Wasn't that _his_ suit and _his_ shirt?

His eyes dropped lower without halting at the napkin in the soup plate.

Weren't those _his_ trousers? Weren't those _his_ discarded boots which the brilliant intellectual scholar was wearing?

"Oh, that's it," he said. "Nothing more." With a wicked grin of scorn he turned to Lilly, who could scarcely keep on her feet. "May I speak to you alone for an instant?"

"Will you excuse me, Mr. Redlich?" she said, and in her confusion and from force of habit, she opened the door to--the bedroom, as if that were the prescribed place for single ladies to receive their gentlemen friends. Richard, who was as accustomed to the way as she, followed her, unconscious of the exposure of intimacy.

"Listen," he said upon shutting the door. "I was a donkey for having been jealous of your affinity. But now I swear to you, your friends may come and go, morning or evening, any time you wish. I'll always keep old suits on hand for them. Good-by--goosie!"

He left. She could hear him laughing even after the door fell shut behind him.

She was frightfully ashamed. How would she ever summon the courage to appear before her girlhood friend again, before that moral person who had shrunk at the mere mention of her divorce?

Then she realised she was standing in the bedroom.

Everything was revealed, all the disgrace of her existence, all, all.

No matter how unworldly he might be, the role of the man who had so suddenly intruded in the apartment and as suddenly disappeared, must be patent.

A long time she hesitated, the k.n.o.b in her hand, listening to what Fritz Redlich was doing. She feared his tread, the clearing of his throat. His very silence boded evil.

At last, trembling, ready to confess everything amid tears of contrition, she stepped into the dining-room.

Lo and behold! He sat quietly at his accustomed place rubbing at the spot the wet napkin had made on his waistcoat. The blue goggles lay next to his plate, and he blinked at her amiably with no air of constraint.

"Has the gentleman left already?" he asked innocently.

At that moment the roast was brought in, and he fell to with avidity, making no further mention of the interlude.

Actually--so pure was his conscience that he did not detect the impure even if thrust under his very nose.

Oh, how grateful she was to him!

To prove her grat.i.tude she told him he might come evenings also--Richard permitted it--without waiting to be invited.

If she should happen to be out, the maid would prepare supper for him, and see to it that he lacked nothing, absolutely nothing. And mindful of the wry face the maid had cut the first day he came, she enjoined her emphatically:

"Now be real pleasant and friendly to him, so that he always feels at home here."

The buxom wench turned down the corners of her mouth and said nothing.

Lilly now went to work in behalf of Fritz Redlich with redoubled zeal.

She again found a ready a.s.sistant in Mrs. Jula.

"Leave the thing to me," said Mrs. Jula one day "There's somebody up there I've known a long time"--she hesitated a bit--"he's all-powerful, and has taken the Good Lord's place in many a minister's family. If I were to write to him--but, of course my name must be kept out, it's still a red rag to the bull up there."

The next day Lilly sent her one of the advertis.e.m.e.nts that Fritz Redlich had inserted in the paper. Mrs. Jula was to forward it to a certain person, and the response would then go directly to Fritz Redlich without the intermediation of a third party. Lilly preferred that his future fortune should appear to be due entirely to his own efforts.

And behold! Mrs. Jula was successful.

One evening the next week Fritz Redlich appeared at Lilly's unexpectedly--a frequent occurrence now, whether she was at home or not--and complacently informed her his advertis.e.m.e.nt had been so convincing that he had immediately received an invitation from a minister in Further Pomerania to send his references and be ready to leave Berlin at short notice. The minister seemed to be quite keen for him.

Lilly's heart throbbed with pride. Nothing in the world would have induced her to betray that she was at the bottom of his good luck.

His happiness was her work! He himself, therefore, was her possession, more absolutely her possession than anything in the world.

During the meal an exalted, blissful silence prevailed. Since he had not announced his coming, there was no potato soup, the usual first course.

She excused herself for the omission, and added with a little pang:

"At any rate you won't take many more meals with me."

"Probably," he said with an embarra.s.sed glance at the maid, whose presence evidently troubled him. Had she not been there, he would very likely have given warmer expression to his feelings.