Front matter (continued 4)

"Now I am really ready!" Frau von Seleneck declared for the twentieth time, and to confirm the statement proceeded to lead the way downstairs. Nora followed resignedly. She knew that it was raining, and she knew also that the very idea of taking a cab would be crushed instantly as a heinous extravagance, so she gathered up the frail skirt of her chiffon dress and prepared for the worst with a humorous despair.

Fortunately, though they indeed missed the tram, the road to Her Excellency Frau von Gersdorf's flat was not a long one, and only Nora's temper suffered in the transit. And even that circumstance passed unnoticed. Frau von Seleneck had walked very fast, and by the time they had mounted the flight of stone stairs leading to their destination she was hopelessly out of breath and in no mood to notice Nora's ruffled condition.

"Ah, but it is good to be arrived!" she sighed in English as she yielded her cloak to the attendant housemaid. "Now, my dear!"

The "now, my dear" was uttered in an awe-struck tone which suggested a solemnal entry into the Imperial Presence, and Nora, following her lead towards the drawing-room, experienced the bliss of a short-lived hope. She knew that it was a great honour to be invited to "Her Excellency's Evenings"; was it not possible that they might be different to the other "evenings" which she knew so well? Was it not possible that she was to see new faces and learn to know a brilliant world which she could show to Miles without—— She did not finish the thought, and indeed the hope had died at birth.

The door was thrown open, and she found herself in a small library, which appeared to form a kind of backwater for the two adjoining and equally over-crowded rooms. Nora sighed. There was no one in that moving stream whom she had not met before—the very sandwiches arranged in symmetrical order on the table under the window seemed to welcome her with the silent greeting of a long-established friendship. She knew their history so well. Had she not made them herself as many times as it had been her fate to give a so-called "evening"? As to the rest of the company, there was the usual sprinkling of elderly officers and their wives and an apparently limitless number of stray lieutenants who, commanded temporarily to Berlin, had been brought together by the natural law which unites exiles and outcasts. Her Excellency's son himself belonged to a regiment stationed in a southern state—hence the familiar "clique" which crowded his mother's rooms. Nora had seen enough to resign all hope before their hostess bore down upon them. The little old lady, who had been holding a veritable levee at the folding-doors, displayed all the naïve cordiality which belonged to her South German blood.

"How good of you to come!" she exclaimed, taking Nora's hand between both her own. "It is such a delightful evening—everybody is here, you know. And where is Herr von Arnim?"

Nora looked down smiling into the alert but deeply lined face. In any other country Her Excellency von Gersdorf would have cut rather a ridiculous figure. She had once been a great beauty, and though there were but few traces left of her former splendour, she had still retained the long ringlets and the flowered brocades of her youth. These and other eccentricities—she had a passion for reciting her own and other people's poetry on all possible and impossible occasions—were respectfully accepted by the mighty circle of her acquaintances. She was Her Excellency von Gersdorf, the widow of a high-standing Court official, and by birth a countess with sixteen untarnished quarterings; consequently at liberty to do, say, and dress exactly what and how she pleased, without exciting the slightest criticism. Nora knew all this; but in the brief pause between her hostess's question and her own answer she found herself again wondering what her English friends would say—what Miles would say.

"My husband sends his greetings and begs that your Excellency will excuse him," she answered. "He has some important work to-night and could not accompany me."

Frau von Gersdorf nodded, whilst her bright, bird-like eyes wandered over her guests.

"I know, I know; these General-Staff husbands are totally unreliable. But there, I dare say you will be able to amuse yourself without him. I think you must know everybody here?"

"Everybody," Nora responded gravely.

"And—ach, ja, naturlich! There is a countryman of yours who is most anxious to meet you again." She saw Nora's colour change, and added quickly, "I do not mean an Englishman—a captain from the dragoons in Karlsburg—Herr Rittmeister!"

A tall figure in a pale-blue uniform disengaged itself from a group of officers by the window and came towards them. Nora recognised Bauer instantly, but this time his good-looking face, with its expression of almost insolent indifference, aroused no feeling either of aversion or alarm. She determined to treat him as she would have treated any other acquaintance, satisfied that a great change divided the hot-headed child of then from the dignified married woman of now. Bauer's manner also reassured her. He kissed her extended hand with a grave respect which was almost apologetic and caused her to answer his greeting with an impulsive friendliness worthy of a younger and less experienced Nora.

Frau von Gersdorf nodded her satisfaction. She evidently felt that two of her guests were settled for the evening, and patted Nora's arm with a hand whose white beauty was one of the few remaining traces of the past.

"You two can talk Karlsburg news as soon as Herr Rebenski has finished his sonata," she said as she prepared to bustle off. "He is one of my protégés—a real genius, you know."

Bauer looked at Nora with a faint, whimsical grimace.

"Her Excellency has always a genius on hand," he said. "It is part of her own genius—this 'discovering' instinct. Apparently the latest belongs to the piano virtuoso class. We shall have to listen in respectful silence."

To confirm his statement, a profound hush fell upon the assembly. Those who could find chairs sat down, the others lined themselves along the wall and stood in various attitudes of attention or indifference. Bauer had discovered an empty alcove at the back of the room, and from this point of vantage Nora studied her surroundings with the keenness of her new vision. She had written home of her "brilliant life" and had not been hypocritical. For her it had at first been brilliant. The resplendent uniforms, the constant social intercourse, the courtly gallantry of her husband's comrades, the ring of grand names—all these features in her daily life had bewildered her, accustomed as she was to the stagnation and general dullness of Delford society. Now the thought of Miles's advent steadied her critical faculties. She saw behind the first glamour an almost extraordinary simplicity, a total indifference to what she had always looked upon as the refinements of life. These people cared for other things: the women thought little of their appearance—they gloried in their name and position; the men, beneath the polish of their manners, were something primitive in their tastes. Nora thought suddenly of her husband. How little he seemed to mind the narrow dimensions of his home, the ugliness of the furniture! How satisfied the elegant staff-officer seemed with his supper of cheap wine and sausage! Nora's sense of humour won the upper hand. She laughed to herself, and suddenly realised that the long sonata was at an end and that Bauer was speaking to her under cover of the renewed hubbub.

"Gnädige Frau, do you know why I am here to-night?" he asked.

Nora looked up.

"Probably because you were invited, and wished to enjoy a pleasant evening," she said, still smiling at her own thoughts.

"A pleasant evening!" he laughed. "Gnädige Frau, in an ordinary way I avoid these festivities like the plague. I came to-night because I had heard that you were coming. Please, do not frown like that—the statement is wholly innocent of impertinence. I wanted to meet you again because I wanted to apologise."

"To me?"

"Yes. Do you remember a certain morning in the forest at Karlsburg—a few weeks before your return to England? You were out riding with Captain von Arnim, and I galloped past you. I was told after wards that my furious riding had frightened your horse and that but for your future husband's presence of mind there might have been an accident. The thought has troubled me ever since."

Nora felt a pang of remorse. She felt that she had misjudged this man. Her previous conduct to him appeared inexcusably childish and prejudiced.

"You did not do it on purpose," she said gently.

"No; that is true. I did not see you until it was too late. Still, I had no business to ride like that—I was in the devil's own mood that morning."

"With a reason?"

"Yes; with a reason. Perhaps one day I will tell you about it—but not now. Am I forgiven?"

Nora nodded. She was reliving the moment when she had felt Wolff's arm snatch her, as it had seemed, from the brink of death; she saw again his white, frightened face, and answered truthfully:

"I have nothing to forgive. You did me no harm."

"No; I know," he said, as though he had divined her thoughts. Nora caught a glance of his face in the long mirror opposite, and was struck for a moment by the bitterness of his expression. He looked less indifferent than usual—almost disturbed.

"They say that if you give the devil a finger he takes the whole hand," he went on after a pause, and in a lighter tone. "Having obtained your forgiveness, I now come with a request, gnädige Frau."

"May it be as easily granted!" Nora answered, laughing.

"At any rate, it is not for myself this time. My sister-in-law, Frau Commerzienrat Bauer, has asked me to be a suppliant on her behalf. Perhaps you remember her? You met her at the Charity Bazaar last month."

Nora shook her head.

"I am a disgrace—I forget people's names so quickly," she said apologetically.

"My relation has a better memory—especially for those to whom she has taken a fancy. She has a special weakness for English people, and it seems she is most anxious to meet you again. She has, of course, quite another circle of acquaintances, and so is driven to the expedient of calling on you herself. Has she your permission?"

Something in the request or in the manner of its making jarred on Nora. She hesitated, not knowing why, and Bauer went on quickly:

"I know this form of proceeding is unusual, gnädige Frau, and I confess I should not have undertaken to be my sister-in-law's messenger if it had not been that I had heard you were expecting your brother. The two things do not seem to have much connection, but it struck me that it might interest him—and perhaps you—to see something of another side of German life. There is another side, gnädige Frau."

"I am very content with the one I know," Nora answered. She was conscious of a rising repugnance—and a rising curiosity.

Bauer laughed.

"That is natural enough. You have married an officer, and have made his set yours. But for your brother it will be different. I know a little of English life and of English tastes, and I fancy he will find all this—this sort of thing cramped and dull, not to say shabby. These people"—his tone became faintly tinged with condescension—"belong to the class which prides itself on being poor but noble, and on despising those who have acquired riches. When they have not enough to eat, they feast on the memory of their ancestors and are satisfied. But there is another class, thank Heaven, one which has taken your people as an example, gnädige Frau. The great commercial and financial potentates, who have flung off the foolish, narrow-hearted prejudices of the past—it is of them and of their lives which you should see something before you pass judgment."

Nora rose suddenly to her feet. She felt vaguely that a bribe had been offered her, and, what was worse, a bribe whose cunning effectiveness had been based on some instinctive knowledge of her mind. All her natural loyalty rose up in arms against it.

"I have not passed judgment," she said proudly. "I should never pass judgment on a people to whom I belong." Then the old impulsive kindness moved her to add: "All the same, I shall be pleased to renew my acquaintance with your sister-in-law at any time convenient to her."

She gave him her hand, a little ashamed of her previous outburst, and he bent over it and kissed it respectfully.

"Thank you, gnädige Frau."

She left him, and he stood there stroking his fair moustache and looking after her with amused and admiring eyes. Nor was he the only one to watch her quiet progress, for, little as she knew it, the child Nora had become a beautiful woman, and the charm of her new womanhood hung about her like a veil.

Later on, when the last of Her Excellency's protégés had performed their uttermost, and Frau von Seleneck and Nora had started on the home passage, the latter ventured a question concerning Frau Commerzienrat Bauer. She did not know why she asked, and Frau von Seleneck's answer did not encourage further curiosity.

"I believe her father had a big furniture-shop somewhere," she said, "and her husband is something or the other on the money-market. I cannot imagine how the captain got into such a good regiment."

"He may be a very good officer," Nora said, conscious of a slight feeling of irritation.

Frau von Seleneck shrugged her shoulders.

"He may be. At any rate, I know nothing more about his relations." She lifted her skirts a little higher, though whether to avoid contamination with the mud or as a sign of her general disapproval was not clear. "They are very rich," she added indifferently.

CHAPTER IV

A VISITOR ARRIVES IN KARLSBURG

The square-built house in the Moltke Strasse was to let. A big notice in the front windows published the fact, although the curtains were still hanging, and the air of desolation which usually envelops "desirable residences," or their German equivalents, was not yet noticeable.

Inside, the signals of departure were more evident. The hall had been stripped bare of its scanty decorations, and in the disordered rooms a person of obviously Hebrew origin was to be seen roaming about with a pencil and a greasy note-book, making a careful inventory of the valuables. There was, indeed, only one room where the bustle and the confusion had been vigorously excluded and where the Hebrew gentleman's foot had not yet ventured to tread. This was Frau von Arnim's boudoir, and Hildegarde had taken refuge there like a shipwrecked mariner on a friendly island. She lay on her sofa with closed eyes and listened to the hammering and bumping of furniture over the bare boards. Only an occasional contraction of the fine brows and a tightening of the lips betrayed that she was awake, and that the sounds were painful to her.

Frau von Arnim, who was working at her accounts by the window, never failed to catch that fleeting expression of suffering. It was as though some invisible nerve of sympathy existed between her and the invalid, and that she knew when the dull ache kindled to poignant pain. For a time she remained silent, ignoring what she saw. Then she rose, and coming to Hildegarde's side, laid her hand tenderly upon the white forehead.

"Does it cost so much?" she asked. "Does it cost too much? Ought I never to have allowed so great a sacrifice?"

Instantly Hildegarde's eyes opened and revealed a brightness that they had not shown since the days when she had ridden at Wolff's side through the forest, and known neither suffering nor loss.

"It's not a sacrifice," she said, taking her mother's hand, and holding it in her own. "When I think of what we are going to do, and why we are doing it, I feel as though I were giving myself some selfish pleasure and making you pay the price. After all, from my sofa the world will look much the same in Berlin as it does here, and if I am sorry to leave, it is only because every room has its dear associations. You see, on my side it is only a sentimental sort of pain, which is rather agreeable than otherwise. But for you it is different. It will be so lonely for you, and I know how you hate flats—a suite of lofts in a badly managed hotel is what you used to call them."

Frau von Arnim smiled.

"You have a bad memory in so far as it retains foolish remarks, better forgotten," she said. "I am sure I shall be very happy in our new home, and in any case, I, too, have my pleasure from our 'plot.' I have just been reckoning that if we are careful we shall be able to allow them at least 1,000 marks more next year, and that will make all the difference in the world to them. They will not have to worry so much over their pfennige at any rate."

"If only Wolff will accept it!" Hildegarde said doubtfully. "He is like the rest of us all; and if he thinks, as I suppose he must, that we are giving up anything, he will call it a sacrifice and will refuse to accept it."

"He will do just what I tell him!" Frau von Arnim retorted, with a touch of half-laughing authority, which threw a sidelight on her conscious power over her entourage. "He will let me humbug him because there will be nothing else for him to do. I shall say that we have come to Berlin to be near them—which is true; that we prefer the quiet quarters—which is partly true; that we are doing our best to spend our money, but that, do what we will, there is always a trouble—some 1,000 marks over, which won't be got rid of—which is not true at all. I shall offer it him as an indirect present to Nora, and Nora will secretly spend it on his dinners, and both will be all the happier; you need not be afraid."

Hildegarde's eyes flashed with amusement. She loved her mother in her triumphant, self-confident moods.

"I do not think I was afraid—really," she said. "I know by experience that you can twist most people round your finger. And Wolff is no exception."

She smiled to herself, and there was something wistful in her expression which Frau von Arnim was quick to perceive. She bent lower as though she wished to catch and interpret every shadow that crossed her daughter's face.

"And you will be glad to see them again, Hildegarde? You are strong enough? It will not make you unhappy?"

Hildegarde shook her head.

"It is true when I say that I am longing to see them," she said firmly. "I am happier—far happier now than in the time when I knew that, crippled though I was, Wolff would have married me, that I had only to stretch out my hand, as it were, for him to take it. It was so hard not to stretch out my hand; I had to crush down my love for him, and throw scorn on myself for daring to love at all. Every day I was afraid that I might betray myself. Now it is different. I can love him openly and honestly as my brother, and Nora I can love too without bitterness or envy as the one woman who could make him happy, or who was worthy of him. So you see, dearest, everything is for the best."

Frau von Arnim nodded, satisfied by the steady, cheerful voice.

"You have your reward," she said. "Rightly enough, Wolff traces all his happiness back to you, and his love and gratitude are in proportion."

"To his happiness?" Hildegarde suggested, smiling. "In that case I ought to be more than satisfied. Although, perhaps, for my sake he tries to hide that fact, it is obvious from his letters that he never knew what the real thing was until Nora became his wife. And I believe it will be lasting. We know Nora so well. We know how good and loving and honest she is. I do not think she will ever disappoint him or us."

"And Wolff, of course, could not disappoint any one, not even though he were advertised as perfect," Frau von Arnim observed slyly. "So we need feel no alarm for the future. And now I must go back to my accounts."

There was a long unbroken silence. Hildegarde seemed really asleep, or at least too deep in her own thoughts to notice the significant rumblings overhead, and her mother was frowning over the division of income, or rather the stretching of income over the hundred-and-one things necessary to the "keeping up of appearances." The latter occupation had been the constant worry of Frau von Arnim's life. Her poverty had always been of the brilliant kind, but it had been poverty none the less for that, and now this change had come it was not even to be brilliant. Not that she felt any regret. The "brilliancy" had only been maintained as a sort of sop to the family traditions, and now that the family honour seemed to concentrate itself on Wolff, it was only natural that the other members would be ready to make every sacrifice to support him and save him from the curse of pecuniary troubles, which is the curse of two-thirds of the German nobility. So the old home was to be given up, and the old pill-box brougham and such of the family relics as would find no place in the narrow dimensions of an étage were to drift into the hands of strangers. Both Frau von Arnim and Hildegarde, brought up in the stern code of their old race, found this course of events perfectly correct, and they would have done no less even if they had not cared for Wolff. Thus the frown upon Frau von Arnim's brow was caused not so much by trouble or regret as by a natural dislike for the consideration of pfennige, and it was with a movement of almost relief that she looked up presently, aroused from her unloved task by the ringing of the front-door bell.

"That must be Herr Sonnenthal again," she said. "He has probably come to tell us how much the carriage has fetched. Would you mind if I saw him in here?"

Hildegarde assented, but her mother's supposition proved incorrect. The untidy charwoman who put in her head a minute later informed them that there was a strange gentleman downstairs inquiring after a certain Fräulein whose name she, the charwoman, had not been able to grasp, and that, failing her, he had requested the honour of a few minutes' conversation with the gnädige Frau herself.

Frau von Arnim looked puzzled as she studied the card.

"I think there must be some mistake," she said. "However, show him up here."

For some reason or other nothing was said of the unknown visitor. It is possible that, as the wild beasts of the forest have an instinctive prescience of an enemy's approach, so we, in our higher world of sensitiveness, receive indefinable warnings when mischance is about to overtake us or a personality to enter into our lives and change its whole course. Certain it is that neither Frau von Arnim nor Hildegarde were fully at their ease as their visitor entered the room, and their response to his correct, somewhat stiff bow was marked by that frigidity which seems to ask of itself "Who are you? What do you want with us?"

Hildegarde had drawn herself up into a sitting position. The last two months had brought a marked change for the better in her health, and with a revival of the old strength had come a revival of the old pride and sensitiveness. She hated a stranger to see, and perhaps pity, her infirmity, and, moreover, on this occasion she was conscious of an inexplicable restlessness.

There was, at all events, nothing alarming in the stranger's appearance. A tall, carefully dressed man, with a thin sunken face, and a manner suggesting at once breeding and embarrassment, stood in the doorway, evidently uncertain as to his own course of conduct. As the silence threatened to grow awkward, Frau von Arnim took the initiative.

"From your card, and from what my servant tells me, I judge that you are English, Captain Arnold," she said, motioning him to be seated.

The visitor's face immediately lightened, and he advanced into the room, without, however, making further use of her invitation.

"I should be most thankful," he said. "If my German had not been of such a negligible quality I should not have had to trouble you. Indeed, until I heard you speak I feared my difficulties were by no means at an end. I hope you will excuse my intrusion?"

His sentences, like his manner, were somewhat wooden, and not calculated to inspire any particular warmth in his hearers. Having briefly introduced him to Hildegarde, Frau von Arnim repeated her invitation, which he now accepted, though with reluctance.

"I shall be glad to be of any service to you," Frau von Arnim said graciously. "English people are bound to me by at least one tie, and it is always a pleasure when I can assist any one of them. You need not apologise therefore."

Arnold smiled, and his expression suggested that he accepted her words as a formal politeness, and valued them as such.

"You are very kind," he said. "At the same time I trust that I need not trespass too much on your good-nature. I must explain that I have just returned from Africa, and Karlsburg lying on overland route, I stopped in the hope that Miss Ingestre were still staying here. Your servant, however, did not understand my German, or did not recognise the name——"

"The latter is certain," Frau von Arnim interrupted calmly. "The girl was not here when Miss Ingestre lived with us."

"Miss Ingestre has left, then?"

"Already—some months."

Captain Arnold rose abruptly. It was evident that his mission was at an end.

"In that case I do not need to trouble you further," he said. "I came on a mere supposition. Had I not travelled so quickly I should no doubt have heard from Miss Ingestre herself, but I have been on the road night and day, missing, apparently, every mail, and getting a good start on my own letters. I shall now have to hurry on to England as fast as possible."

"If you wish to meet Frau von Arnim your journey will be in vain," Hildegarde said. "She is at present in Berlin."

Arnold turned, and for the first time looked steadily at the speaker. It was evident that the words had had no meaning for him, but there was a curious, apparently causeless animosity and distrust in her steady eyes which arrested his attention and aroused in him emotions of a like nature. It was as though unconsciously they had hated each other before all time, and that the hatred had now become a definite recognisable quality.

"You spoke of Frau von Arnim," he said. "I am afraid I do not quite understand."

Hildegarde shrugged her shoulders. The movement was slightly insolent and utterly at variance with her usual gentle courtesy, but, like all nervous invalids, she could be goaded beyond all self-control, and something in this man's manner jarred on her as presumptuous, overbearing, suggesting an impertinent familiarity with the woman who was Wolff's wife.

"I think you must undoubtedly have missed your letters," she said; "otherwise you would know that Miss Ingestre ceased to exist many months ago."

The next minute she regretted her own clumsiness. The man's whole bearing and expression had changed. His face was livid; it was obvious that he had a hard task to control an extraordinary agitation.

"You must think me very stupid," he said, and his voice was painful to listen to. "I beg of you to speak more clearly. You will perhaps understand what it means to me when I tell you what you seem not to know—that Miss Ingestre is to be my wife."

"Captain Arnold, you are labouring under some strange delusion. Miss Ingestre is already married."

It was Frau von Arnim who spoke. She had advanced almost unconsciously, and now stood half-way between him and Hildegarde, who had risen to her feet.

Arnold said nothing. His eyes were fixed full on Frau von Arnim's face, but his expression was absolutely blank, and he did not seem to see her. She waited, too disturbed to move farther forward along the path of inevitable explanation, and after a minute, in which the man's whole moral strength seemed to be concentrated in the fight for self-mastery, Arnold himself broke the silence.

"I can only believe that there is a misapprehension on both sides," he said. "Are you speaking of Miss Nora Ingestre?"

"Of Miss Nora Ingestre that was."

"And you say she is already married?"

"In April—five months ago."

"To whom?"

"To Hauptmann von Arnim, at present officer on the Staff at Berlin."

"You are sure of what you say? There is no possible mistake?"

Frau von Arnim's brows contracted proudly. For a brief moment she had sympathised with, and even pitied, his agitation. His rigid self-control, entailing as it did an increased abruptness of manner, impressed her disagreeably, hiding from her usually keen eyes the fact that the man was really suffering. She answered therefore, with considerable haughtiness:

"There is no possible mistake. You will see that for yourself when I tell you that Herr von Arnim is my nephew, and that I myself was at the wedding at Delford."

Arnold bowed. His expression was now normal, and it suggested no more than the calm interest of an ordinary caller on an ordinary topic of conversation.

"You are perfectly right," he said. "There is no possible mistake. I am very grateful to you for your explanation."

He included Hildegarde in his curt salute, and turned towards the door.

Frau von Arnim detained him with a decided and indignant gesture.

"The matter cannot end there," she said. "You have suggested that Miss Ingestre was engaged to you at the time of her betrothal with my nephew. It is a suggestion intensely offensive to us all. It is now my turn to point out to you that you are making a mistake—or worse."

Arnold coloured with anger.

"I am not likely to make a mistake of such magnitude," he said. "Of your second insinuation I need take no notice."

"In that case I must ask you to be more explicit. I—we have a right to an explanation."

"Excuse me—I fail to see that any one has a right in a matter which concerns Miss Ingestre—Frau von Arnim, and myself alone."

"The matter concerns my nephew and us all."

Arnold smiled ironically.

"I regret that I cannot sympathise with your point of view," he said. "In any case, I have no explanation to offer."

There was a blank silence. It was the more marked because it followed on a sharp lightning-like exchange, kept within bounds of outward courtesy only by the education and upbringing of the conflicting personalities. Frau von Arnim, usually armed with a kindly wisdom which had sympathy for all sorts and conditions of men, was brought nearer to a display of uncontrolled anger than in all her life before. To her mind, Arnold had, unwittingly perhaps, cast a slur upon the credit of one who was a member of her family; and her family was Frau von Arnim's fetish. He had done so, moreover, without offering proof or justification, and the latter offences deepened his guilt, though their omission would not have shielded him from her enmity.

Arnold, on his side, saw a haughty, domineering woman who claimed the right to investigate a personal overwhelming calamity in which she had no share, and with which he could as yet only grapple in blind, half-incredulous pain. He disliked her instinctively, but also because he could not understand the motives and principles which governed her conduct towards himself. He continued speaking after a moment, and his irritation was so intense that it helped him to overcome, almost forget, his own misery.

"I think there is nothing more to be said," he observed, looking Frau von Arnim coldly in the face. "It seems I have blundered, and it is only right that I should bear the brunt of the consequences alone. I am sure you will agree with me that it will be best for this—what has passed between us—to be kept entirely to ourselves, to be forgotten. It can only bring trouble to others, and, as I have said, I am alone to blame."

In spite of everything, he was thinking of Nora, seeking to shield her from the results of his betrayal of a cruel duplicity.

Frau von Arnim was thinking of Wolff, and of the woman to whom he had entrusted his happiness—above all things, their name.

"What you suggest is impossible," she said. "There are things one cannot forget—at least not until they have been explained. We must therefore look for the explanation."

"I have none to give," Arnold returned, with bitter truth.

"Then we must look elsewhere."

"It would be better to do as I suggest, and leave the matter alone, or lay it to my account—to my own stupid muddle." He spoke hurriedly, for he felt afraid of this woman, with her haughty, resolute face. It was as though, unwittingly, he had roused to action a force which had passed out of his control.

"If there is any shadow of wrong connected with my nephew's marriage, it must be cleared," Frau von Arnim answered. "That is the only wisdom I know."

Arnold bowed a second time, and went.

For a long time after he had gone the two women remained silent, motionless, avoiding each other's eyes. The action seemed to imply that nothing had happened.

Hildegarde had long since fallen wearily back upon her couch. She roused herself then, and turned her white, troubled face towards her mother.

"The man must be mad!" she said, almost violently. "Nora could never have done such a thing. She is so frank and honest. She would have told us from the beginning. I could have sworn that she never cared for a man before she loved Wolff. I do not believe a word of it."

"Nor I," her mother answered calmly. "As you say, the man may be mad—though he did not seem so—or there may really be some mistake. But we must make sure, for our own peace of mind, and Nora is the only one who can help us. Even so we must have patience and wait. We have no right to trouble her so early in her married life with what, I pray, may be a false alarm."

"You must ask her when we are in Berlin," Hildegarde said, in the same sharp, determined tone. "I could not see her every day like that and not know."

"You are quite right. When we are settled in Berlin I will tell her everything that has happened. Until then we must believe the best."

"Yes, of course—believe the best," Hildegarde answered thoughtfully.

CHAPTER V

THE CUB AS LION

The express steamed in between the crowded platforms of the Potsdamer Bahnhof, and from one of the windows of a carriage labelled "Vlissingen" a rather sallow face and a loud voice announced the fact that Mr. Miles Ingestre had made his triumphal entry into the Fatherland.

Nora, who had been threading her way through the crowd, with Wolff's arm in hers, ran off and was received by her brother with that English prosaicness which has the advantage of being equally admirable as Spartan disguise for rich and noble emotions or as an expression of no emotion at all.

"Hullo, old girl, how are you?"

"Very well, thanks. What was the journey like?"

"Might have been worse. There were a lot of beastly Germans in the carriage, so of course the windows——" He caught sight of Wolff, who had approached at a more leisurely pace, and his tone shaded down somewhat. "Hullo, Wolff, how are you?"

They shook hands, and whilst the Gepäckträger was bustling round in the search for the new-comer's luggage, one of those painful silences threatened to set in which are the ghosts at all meetings where joy is too deep for words, or too shallow to stand much demonstration. Of the three, Miles himself was the only one who was sincerely in high spirits. They broke out in spurts and seemed regulated very much by how far he was conscious of Wolff's presence. It was evident that his respect for his brother-in-law had gone up several degrees since the afternoon when he had criticised the latter's Karlsburg civilian clothes, though whether that respect had its source in a juster appreciation of his relative's character or in the knowledge that Wolff was now master in his own country was hard to determine. Certain it is that he did his best to be amiable after his own fashion.

"I assure you I have been simply wild to come," he said as they made their way together towards the exit of the station. "It was as stale as ditch-water at home, and I was getting fairly fed up with it all. So I piled on my 'nerves,' as the pater calls them, and dropped a few hints about the place, which the old man picked up quite brightly—for him. He was really quite game about it, and sent all sorts of amiable messages to you, Wolff."

"Thanks. By the way, how long does your leave extend? You seem pretty liberal with that sort of thing in your Army."

Miles chuckled.

"My leave extends to all eternity," he said enigmatically, and then, as he saw Nora's astonished face, he condescended to explanation. "I've chucked the Army, you know. I thought the pater had told you. I was fairly fed up with the drudgery and the routine of it all. It wasn't so bad at first. It gave one a kind of standing, and as long as there was plenty of money going a fellow could amuse himself fairly well. But when the pater began drawing in the purse-strings I had enough of it. Ugh! Imagine duty one half of the day and trying to make both ends meet the other half! No, thanks!"

He shuddered, and Nora looked at him anxiously.

"Then what are you going to do afterwards?" she asked.

"Go into some business or other—something where one can make money as fast as possible. By the way, Wolff, is it true that you are on the general staff?"

"Yes; it is quite true, fortunately."

"I see—great gun. Hard work, though, I suppose?"

"Yes——" Arnim hesitated, as though on the point of making some remark, and then added innocently enough, "Perhaps you would have found it less of a drudgery than the usual routine, but scarcely remunerative enough."

Miles glanced uneasily at his brother-in-law, and then subsided, to all appearance suppressed, but Nora, who walked on his other side, caught a fleeting grimace, which was all too easy to translate into Miles's vernacular. She was secretly thankful when her husband had seen them both into a cab and closed the door.

"I shall be home late to-night," he said. "Don't stay up for me, dear, if you are tired."

He waited on the pavement until they drove off, and Nora's eyes sought to convey to him an unusual tenderness. There was indeed something remorseful and apologetic in her manner which she herself could hardly have explained. For the first time she was conscious of being almost glad that he was not coming home, and her sense of relief when at length the droschke actually started on its way was so keen that she felt herself guilty of disloyalty. "It is only the first evening," she thought in self-defence. "They are such strangers to each other. Wolff might not understand Miles. It will be better when they know each other and are friends."

"Where is Wolff to-night?" Miles inquired, breaking in upon her troubled thoughts. "Any spree on?"

"It is his Kriegsspiel night," Nora answered. "He has to go."

Miles chuckled sceptically.

"Rather good for us, anyhow," he said. "We can talk so much better, can't we?"

Nora was thankful for the half-darkness. The angry colour had rushed to her cheeks. And yet her brother's words, tacitly placing Wolff in the position of an outsider as they did, were little more than a brutalised edition of her own thoughts.

"I hate it when he is not at home," she said loyally. "Of course, to-night it is different, but as a rule it is very lonely without him."

"But you have plenty of people who could come and see you?"

"Y—es. Still, there are evenings when there is no one."

"Well, you have got me now," said Miles consolingly. He was busy gazing out of the carriage window, and for a time the bustling, lighted streets occupied his whole attention. Nora made no attempt to distract him. She was not feeling very happy not as happy as she knew she ought to be—and the fact worried her. Presently they turned into a quiet street and Miles sank back with a sigh of satisfaction.

"It seems a lively enough sort of place," he said. "I expect you have a gay time, don't you?"

"I am very happy," said Nora, with unusual eagerness.

"Yes, of course, but I meant gay—dances and dinners and all that sort of thing. The pater ran into some fellow who had just come back from a trip to Berlin, and he said the officers had no end of a time—were treated like the lords of creation, in fact, especially if they had a bit of a title stuck on to their names. Wolff is a baron, isn't he?"

"Yes," said Nora abruptly.

"I thought so. Pater stuck him up a peg to this chap and said he was a count. Barons aren't much in Germany, though. They're as common as herrings."

"They don't think so," Nora protested, hot with annoyance. "They think a good deal of it."

"Yes—snobs. That's what this fellow said. However, I don't mind. The good time is the only thing I care about, and you seem to have that all right by your letters."

Nora's brows contracted. In a rapid mental review she passed over everything she had ever written home, and reconsidered it in the light of Miles's possible judgment. Frau von Seleneck gave dinners. There were never more than four simple courses, whose creation, she proudly admitted, was owed almost entirely to her own skill. The orderly waited at table, and it was a standing joke that somebody's dress or uniform had to pay for his too eager attentions. Nora remembered having written home that she had enjoyed herself immensely, and she had written in perfect truth. She had happened to like the people on that particular occasion, and above all things Wolff himself had been there. This wonderful fact of Wolff's presence was indeed sufficient to colour the most dismal entertainment in Nora's opinion; but in Miles's opinion, she felt with painful certainty, it would have less than no effect. He did not love Wolff as she did, and without love her "brilliant life" might, after all, be more correctly viewed as a hard if cheerful struggle against necessity.

"There is always something going on," she said at length; "but you must not expect anything too wonderful, dear. People in Germany live much more simply than we—than in England, you know. And—we are not rich." She made the last confession with an effort—not in the least because she was ashamed, but because—Nora herself could have given no explanation.

Miles laughed.

"I don't expect you live in a loft," he said.

Nora thought of their little fourth-floor flat and laughed too—also with an effort for which there was no possible reason.

The droschke pulled up with a grind against the curbstone, and a gruff voice informed them that they had arrived at their destination. Miles jumped out and looked about him doubtfully.

"What a poky street!" he said, rather as though he thought the coachman must have made a mistake. "Is this really your house?"

"Our flat is here," Nora said. "We—we like it because it is so quiet."

And then she was ashamed of herself, because she knew that she had not been honest.

Miles showing no intention of paying the coachman, she paid him herself out of her own slender purse, and they began the ascent of the narrow stone steps which led to the heights of their étage. She knew that Miles was rapidly becoming more puzzled, but she made no attempt to elucidate matters—indeed, could not have done so. Never before had she found the stairs so endless, so barren, so ugly. The chill atmosphere, which yet succeeded in being stuffy, seemed to penetrate into every corner of her heart and weight it down with a leaden depression. She did not look at Miles when they stood crowded together on the narrow landing, nor when her little maid-of-all-work, Anna, opened the door and grinned a more than usually friendly welcome. She led the way into the so-called drawing-room and switched on the electric light—their one luxury—half-hoping that some miracle might have mercifully worked among the plush chairs and covered them with a much-needed elegance. But they stood as they had always stood, in spite of the most careful arranging in the world—stiff and tasteless as though they had come out of the front window of a cheap furniture shop—which, in point of fact, they had—and would not forget that they were "reduced goods." Nora had a kind of whimsical affection for them—they were so hopelessly atrocious that it would have been uncharitable to criticise; but to-night something like hatred welled up in her heart against their well-meaning ugliness. She had felt much the same when Frau von Seleneck had first visited her, but that lady had burst into such unfeigned raptures that the feeling had passed. But Miles said nothing, and his silence was, if exclamatory, not rapturous.

Nora turned to him. She was ashamed of her shame, but with all the will in the world she could only meet his wide-open stare with a sort of defiance which betrayed that she knew already what he was thinking, that she had even foreseen it.

"This is the drawing-room," she said lamely. "We don't often use it, though. It is not as—comfortable as the others."

"I should hope not," he said. He was looking around him with such real and blank astonishment that poor Nora could have laughed if the tears of bitter humiliation had not been so near the surface. Bravely, and with the recklessness of one who feels that the worst is over and nothing else matters, she pushed open the folding-doors.

"The dining-room," she said, as though she were introducing a poor relation of whom she was trying not to be ashamed.

Miles inspected the imitation mahogany table and chairs with his eyebrows still at an elevated angle, but now less with surprise as with a supercilious disgust.

"Is this where you have your dinner parties?" he asked.

Nora heard and understood the irony, and it gave her back her nerve and pride.

"Yes," she said. "We do not have them often, because we cannot afford them. When we do we only have our best friends, and they find the room big enough and good enough."

Miles made no further observation, though his silence was a work of art in unexpressed things, and Nora led him to their little Fremdenzimmer. She had prepared it with the greatest care. There was a jar of flowers on the dressing-table, and everything smelt of freshness and cleanliness, but she had not been able to stretch its dimensions, and it was with unanswerable justice that Miles inquired where he was expected to keep his things.

"You can keep one of your boxes under the bed," Nora said in some confusion. "The others are being put in the corridor. I'm afraid you'll have to go outside when you want anything. I am very sorry, dear."

"That's all right," Miles said, with sudden and surprising amiability. "I'll manage somehow."

Nora left him to make what toilette he chose, thankful to be alone for a moment. She went straight back to the drawing-room and faced each chair in turn with an unflinching eye. Her shame was over and her spirit was up in arms. In that moment she cared nothing for Miles's opinion nor the opinion of the whole world. This was her home—her and Wolff's home—and he who chose to despise it could shake the dust off his feet and go elsewhere. She could almost have embraced the ugliest chair, and she was so proud of her own loyal enthusiasm that she did not recognise it for what it really was—the last desperate refuge of her deeply humbled pride. She went about her work singing to herself—a thing she rarely did—and told herself that she was in excellent spirits. It cost her no effort to leave the dining-room door open whilst she laid the table. Let Miles see her! What did she care? And if he jeered and asked if she waited at her own dinner parties or covered her little home with the wealth of his contempt, had she not one triumphant answer?

"Small and poor it may be, but it contains everything I care for on this earth!"

She felt so sure of herself that when her brother entered half an hour later, she lifted a face from which a happy smile had brushed away every sign of storm and conflict.

"How quick you have been!" she cried. "And, oh, Miles, what a magnificent man!"

He laughed self-consciously and glanced down at his immaculate evening-clothes.

"Not a bad fit, are they?" he said. "Poole's, you know. I suppose you don't change here, do you?"

Nora flinched in spite of herself.

"We do when we can," she said, still cheerful; "but very often Wolff comes back so late that he has no time to do more than wash and slip into his Litewka. Poor fellow! He has to work so frightfully hard."

Again Miles said nothing, and again Nora felt that his silence was more effective than the longest speech. But still borne on the high tide of her enthusiasm, she went on arranging the knives and forks, and only her burning cheeks betrayed that she was not so entirely at her ease. Suddenly, to her complete bewilderment, she found Miles's arm about her and her own head against his shoulder.

"Poor little Nora!" he said. "Poor little sister!"

Nora gasped. He had never been affectionate in his life before, and the tone of manly tenderness was so new as to be almost incredible. She threw back her head and looked into his face with mingled laughter and wonder. He was perfectly serious, and for the first time it dawned on her that there was a real change in him which went deeper than the evening-dress, that he had in fact left boyhood behind him and assumed something of the manners and bearing of a man, something, too, of his father, the Rev. John Ingestre. Gradually her smile died away under the undisturbed seriousness of his gaze.

"Why, what is the matter, Miles?" she asked. "I have never known you like this before."

He bent his head and kissed her.

"It struck me when I was dressing that I had been a bit of a brute," he said. "I am awfully sorry, dear. I had imagined everything so very different that it fairly took my breath away, and I said—well, what had no doubt been better left unsaid. I thought you had humbugged us and I was inclined to be angry. When I thought it over I saw how it all was and I was awfully sorry. Poor old girl!"

She caught her breath, seeking wildly for words to answer him, but none came. She had been prepared for and armed against scorn, not against this brotherly sympathy! Sympathy! What had she to do with sympathy? Sympathy was an insult to Wolff—an insult to their love!

With an effort she tried to free herself.

"You don't understand," she stammered.

"Oh, yes, I think I do," he interrupted. "I understand all that you won't tell me, because you are such a decent little soul; and I will say this and no more: I wish to Heaven it had been another man, Nora, a fine English fellow who would have given you a decent English home. I wish it had been poor old Arnold——"

"Miles, let me go!"

She wrenched herself from his hands. She had seen what he had not seen—Wolff standing in the open doorway, watching them with a curiously pale, grave face. Had he heard, and if he had heard, had he understood? Nora could not tell. Furious with Miles and with herself, she ran to him and put her arms about his neck.

"Oh, how glad I am that you have come!" she cried incoherently. "You are just in time for supper. How did you manage to get away so early?"

He kissed her upturned face. Lips and hands were icy.

"I got special leave," he said. "I thought"—a forced lightness struggled through his gravity—"I thought it was not good manners to desert my own table on the first evening. I am glad that I managed—to come in time. I shall be ready in a minute."

He turned and went into his dressing-room, giving neither time to answer. Nora stared blankly after him. She felt as though she had allowed some one to strike him across the face without protest, and that he had gone away, not angrily, but wounded—perhaps beyond her powers of healing.

"What a pity!" she heard Miles say behind her. "I had looked forward to our evening together."

Nora turned. In her anger and desperation, she could scarcely keep her voice under control.

"Do not talk like that, Miles," she said. "What you think of Wolff does not matter. I am his wife, and this is his home. Remember that!"

Miles put his hand in his pocket and smiled. His smile suggested a perfect understanding.

"I have said what I want to say," he observed. "I shall not need to say it again."

CHAPTER VI

IN WHICH THE REV. JOHN RECEIVES A SHOCK

A few days after his arrival, Miles wrote home in the following terms:

"MY DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,

"I have landed safely, as you know by my telegram, and I expect you are wondering why I have not written before. As a matter of fact, I wanted to have a look round me to see how things were before I broke the news to you. I tell you honestly, if it were not for Nora's sake, and because, of course, I want to pick up some of the lingo, I should have packed up my trunks and come home by the next train. You know how Nora described things to us. You might have imagined them living in palatial apartments with a footman and I don't know what to wait on them.

"Well, my palatial apartment measured eight by eight, and when I get out of bed I have to take care that I don't fall out of the window or into the water-jug. As to the footman, he is a scrubby-looking orderly, who drops bits of potato down your collar whilst he is serving and can't understand a word you say to him. So much for my share of the grandeur. There are four other rooms and they have all about the same dimensions, and have evidently been furnished out of some second-hand place by some one who suffered from colour-blindness. As to the atmosphere! Imagine a kitchen-range with the fat in the fire and you have an idea. Of course, Nora, being English, keeps the windows open, but that's not much good, because we look out on to houses in the front and dirty yards at the back; in fact, I shouldn't think there was a breath of fresh air for miles round. Well, I was fairly thunderstruck, I can tell you, and I have been in varying stages of that condition ever since.

"My first dinner—I had an appetite like a wolf—would have made any ordinary wolf turn tail. Nora said she had had to leave it to the cook, and so everything had gone wrong. It had, and the only wonder is that I didn't go wrong afterwards. The soup was a miniature salt-lake, the meat so tough I couldn't get my knife through it, and the pudding—I never got to the bottom of that pudding, and I hope I never shall. It was a ghastly meal; Wolff was as glum as an undertaker, and Nora as near crying as she could be without coming to the real thing, and I wasn't particularly sprightly, as you can imagine.

"However, at last I got to bed—or the thing which they call a bed—an iron affair with no springs that I could find, and a rotten, puffed-out air-cushion for a covering, which fell off five times in the night and had to be fished up from the floor. At seven o'clock—seven o'clock if you please!—I was thumped awake by the orderly, who had planted a five-inch pot of lukewarm water in my basin. He jabbered a lot which I didn't understand, and then of course I went to sleep again. At about nine I yelled for my bath, and in came Nora, looking awfully tired and worried. It seems she had been up ever since seven slaving at the house—I mean loft—trying to get it shipshape before lunch. After a lot of fuss I got hold of Wolff's hip-bath and had some sort of a wash, getting down to breakfast at ten. Breakfast! Coffee and rolls! Coffee and rolls! I wonder if I shall ever get a square meal again! Wolff had already gone off and didn't get back till lunch, when we had a new edition of supper (which, it appears, had been extra grand on my account). He doesn't seem to mind what he eats, and is always talking shop, which, I am sure, bores Nora as much as it does me.

"What a beastly lot these German fellows think of themselves and their beastly army! He talks about it as though it were a sort of holy institution compared to which nothing else mattered, and goes clattering about the house with his spurs like a god on wheels. Thank Heaven he is not at home much, or we should be having rows in no time. Yesterday, for instance, I came down at ten for breakfast, and in the afternoon he spoke to me about it as though I were a sort of raw recruit—said it gave Nora a lot of extra work, and that he must ask me to be more punctual. I held my tongue for Nora's sake, but I longed to give him a bit of my mind in good English. I longed to ask him why, if he is so keen on Nora being spared, he doesn't see that she has a proper cook and housemaid, why he lets her work like a servant herself whilst he goes off and amuses himself—as I know he does. He can't be badly off. His uniforms are spotless, and he has a ripping horse, which he rides every day. A lot of riding Nora gets—except now and again on borrowed regimental hacks! As to the theatre, she has only been twice since they were married—it's too expensive in Berlin forsooth! and I know for a fact that she has not had a new dress. I suppose all Germans treat their wives like that; but it makes my blood boil to think that Nora should have to put up with it.

"As to their grand friends, I don't think much of them. They all seem to live in the same poky style, and the dinner we were invited to the other day fairly did for me. We sat something like two hours over three courses, each one worse than the other, and the people shouted and jabbered as though they were in a monkey-house. What with the food and the bad wine and the row, I hardly knew whether I was on my head or my heels. Wolff and I had a bit of a jar about it afterwards. He said it was gemütlich, or whatever the word is, and I said it was beastly and that wild horses wouldn't drag me into such a show again, whereupon he had the cheek to inform me that I probably wouldn't be asked and that he thought it was bad form to criticise one's host because he didn't happen to be rich. Nora was nearly in tears, so I held my tongue; but you can guess what I felt like. Imagine that foreigner trying to teach me good form! Of course, I know, mother, that you had a weakness for Wolff, but you should see him in his own home—a selfish, bullying martinet, whose head I should be heartily delighted to punch. Perhaps I shall one day. Don't worry about me, though. I shall be able to look after myself.

"There is one rather nice fellow here—a Captain Bauer, who has been really decent to me and taken me about. He has rich relations with some style about them—if you only knew what an oasis 'style' is in this desert!—and I fancy they mean to give Nora and myself a good time. Wolff tries not to show how wild he is about it, though why he should mind I have no idea. Besides that, I have run up against some nice English fellows, and when I can't stand things and feel in need of a square meal, I go out with them and have a run round. In any case I shall remain, for Nora's sake. At the bottom, I believe she is wishing herself well out of the mess, and so I shall stay as long as possible to help her."

In answer to this description of Nora's home life, the Rev. John wrote to his daughter an epistle fulminating in grief, reproaches, sympathy, and advice. Let it be said in praise of his epistolary abilities, that without ever getting as far as "I told you so!" he implied that sentence at least once on every one of the eight closely written sheets.

"My poor child!" he wrote at the close. "I cannot tell you how this revelation has shocked and grieved me. Alas! I can hardly call it revelation, for did not my father's instinct prophesy everything as it has come to pass? I cannot but admire your noble silence, your generous concealment of the true facts of your life. I can understand how you wish to shield your husband from all reproach, and I am the last one to attempt to turn you from your duty to him. Nevertheless, I beseech you, give us your whole confidence. Let us help you to bear your burden, and if it should grow too heavy, remember that your home awaits you and that your father's arms are always open."

Mrs. Ingestre had added a brief note to this long oration. The handwriting was less firm than of old, as though it had cost an effort, but the short, concise sentences were full of strength and insight.

"Do you still love each other?" she asked. "For if you still love your husband and he still loves you, I need offer neither sympathy nor pity. You are to be envied, and I pray only that you will let no one—not even those dearest to you—come between you and your great happiness. If Miles is stupid and troubles you, send him home."

This little note was first wept over and then hidden away in a secret drawer, but the letter went to the flames, thrown there by an angry, indignant hand.

"How dare he!" Nora thought in a passion of resentment. "How dare any one pity me!"

And she sat down in that same hour and wrote home a protest and a defence which, it is to be feared, was often incoherent and still more often lacking in respect. But her intention was clear. It was condensed in the closing sentences:

"No one has the right to criticise my husband or my house. I love them both, and for me they are the most perfect in the world. Those who really love me will do well to remember this and spare me both advice and misplaced sympathy."

After which this declaration of war, she went out to meet Wolff and greeted him with a delight and tenderness which was almost feverish, almost too marked. It was as though she were saying to herself: "See how much I love him! And if I love him nothing else can matter."

CHAPTER VII

WOLFF SELLS A HORSE AND NORA LOSES A FRIEND

In the broad Exerzier-Platz of the Grenadier barracks a little group of officers were watching the paces of a handsome chestnut thoroughbred, which was being galloped and cantered past them for their inspection. Occasionally they exchanged a terse criticism, but for the most part they were silent, intent upon the business of the moment. The shorter of the three men—a somewhat languid-looking captain of the Hussars—followed the movements of the rider with a professional admiration.

"Too bad, Donnerwetter! really too bad!" he exclaimed, as Arnim at length rode up and swung himself out of the saddle. "That one fellow should have brains and a seat like that as well is a direct injustice. But you are wasted on the Staff, my dear Arnim; sheer wasted. They don't know what to do with such material—the langweilige Streber! But at the head of a Hussar squadron you would cut a figure—auf Ehre, I would give a quarter's pay to have you with Us, and I know a Cavallerist when I see one. Here, let me try him. You would make an old cab-horse step out!"

Wolff laughed shortly.

"By all means, Herr Graf," he said. "You will find that the credit of the performance is more Bruno's than mine."

He stood aside and watched the Count mount and ride slowly off to the other end of the square. His face had been flushed with the recent exercise and the natural joy which a man takes in his own skill and strength, but Seleneck, who was observing him closely, saw that the momentary animation had covered over unusual weariness—even depression. There were lines between the strongly marked brows which the elder man did not like. They were new to Wolff's face, and betokened something more than mere mental strain. They indicated trouble, and trouble also of a new kind.

With an affectionate movement, Seleneck slipped his arm through Wolff's and led him a little apart, as though to point out some special features in the Count's equestrian performance. In reality he was indulging in the grumble which had been choking him for the last hour.

"What a silly fellow you are!" he said. "You have a horse which most of us would give our ears to possess, and you sell it for about half its value. I could hardly believe my senses when I happened to come down on you in the middle of the transaction. It was the shock of my life."

"Your life must be remarkably free from shocks, then," Wolff observed grimly. "It was at any rate one that I had every intention of sparing you."

"I have no doubt. You looked glum enough when I appeared. But that makes it worse. It proves that you know you are doing a silly thing, and are ashamed of it. Seriously, though, whatever has induced you to part with Bruno? You told me only the other day that there wasn't another horse like it in Berlin."

"That was perfectly true. But that is no reason why I should keep such a paragon to myself."

Seleneck took another hasty inspection of his friend's face.

"Does it hurt to smile like that when you are losing your most treasured possession?" he asked quizzically.

"You exaggerate things," Wolff returned, with a movement of impatience. "If I find that I have no need of a horse in Berlin, that it is both a trouble and an expense, there is no need to immediately adopt a tone of high tragedy. Besides, Graf Stolwitz is giving a very fair price, from his point of view. I cannot expect him to pay for my personal attachment to his purchase."

"If I did not know you as I do, I should think you had been gambling," Seleneck said, in his turn slightly ruffled. "At any rate, I am not going to stand by and see the deed. Auf wiedersehen."

Wolff's ears, quick to catch and interpret every shade of tone, had heard the irritation in his friend's voice, and he turned quickly, as though shaking off a weight of preoccupation.

"Forgive me, lieber alter Kerl," he said. "I'm a bear this afternoon, and ready to snap off anybody's head. Don't take any notice of me. And don't worry about Bruno. Everything has its reason."

"You are working too hard," Seleneck declared. "That's what's the matter with you. I shall speak to your wife."

"Please do nothing of the sort," Wolff said firmly. "In the first place, it isn't true; and in the second, it would only worry her. Every man has his own battles to fight, and every man must fight them alone. Such is the law of things, and I am no exception."

"If such were the law of things I should have nothing more to say," Seleneck retorted, "but the man who will neither confide in his friend or his wife is running full-tilt against nature, and must pay for the consequences. If I did not let Elsa have her share of my fights, she would be perfectly miserable—and with reason. I should be depriving her of the one thing that keeps a woman happy—trouble."

Wolff laughed.

"You are an ideal couple," he said.

"And you—are you not an ideal couple?"

"Of course—ideal."

Seleneck waited a moment, as though he expected from Wolff's tone that there was more to come, but the younger man remained silent, to all appearances intent on watching the Count, who was walking his purchase towards them. There was no irony or bitterness in his expression, but also none of the happiness which one might have expected from the one half of an "ideal couple," and Seleneck turned away with a sigh of resignation.

"I think strategy and statistics and military secrets have gone to your head," he said. "You are developing sphinx-like habits which are too much for my childish intellect. Still, when you want me you will know where to find me."

Wolff turned, as though struck by a sudden thought.

"I want you now, Seleneck," he said quickly. "At least, there is something I want your advice about. You know, I suppose, that my wife's brother is staying with us?"

"I heard something about it," Seleneck admitted, with a sudden uneasiness. In truth, he had heard a great deal about it—from his wife. Hitherto, neither Nora nor her brother had called at the little flat, and this deliberate, inexplicable breach of etiquette had grown to be something worse than a grievance in Frau von Seleneck's usually pacific heart. But Seleneck knew himself to be no diplomatist, and held his peace.

"Well, I fancy that time hangs pretty heavy on his hands. Of course, I am too busy to do much in the entertaining line—and I have an idea that I am too German for his taste. At any rate, my wife is very anxious that he should see something more of Berlin life—the social life, you know—and that he should have a—a good impression."

"I can quite understand that," Seleneck said slowly. "We'll do everything we can. Let me see, Elsa was talking of giving a little dinner next week. I'll tell her to include him in the invitation."

"Thank you," Wolff answered. He was staring hard in front of him, and an uncomfortable flush had mounted his cheeks. "It's very good of you both," he added, as though ashamed of his own lack of enthusiasm. "As a matter of fact, Miles has found entertainment enough for the present. He has picked up with Bauer, who appears to have some rich relations here. My—my wife has got to know them too."

"Yes, so I heard," Seleneck observed grimly.

Wolff looked up, frowning.

"Is there any objection?" he demanded.

"I don't know, alter Junge." Seleneck hesitated, conscious again of a failing diplomacy, but goaded on by a sense of duty. "The Bauers are immensely wealthy, but they do not belong to our set, and Bauer himself is not the sort of man to whom I should like to trust a young fellow—or, indeed, any one," he added almost inaudibly.

"What do you mean by that?"

Seleneck faced the stern eyes with the courage of desperation.

"I mean—I feel I ought to tell you—your wife's intimacy with the Bauers is causing ill-feeling. It is all nonsense, of course, but you know how it is—people talk. Forgive me for putting it plainly—Bauer has a bad reputation. They say he has already escaped dismissal from the Army by a hair's-breadth. It is well to be careful." He waited a moment, and then went on, "It has been on my mind some time, Wolff. I felt I ought to warn you, but was afraid you might take it amiss."

Wolff shook his head.

"You have only told me what I already suspected," he said quietly; "and of course, now that I know, I shall speak to Nora about it. She will see how it is at once. It is all my fault—I should have taken more care. And then, there is another thing——"

"Is it anything in which I can help?" Seleneck asked, as Wolff again hesitated. "You know you have only got to say what it is. There need be no humbug between us."

"No; that's true."

Seleneck waited patiently, seeing that whatever it was Wolff found it hard to express the matter on his mind. He was digging his spurred heel into the sand and frowning, not in anger, but with a curious shamefaced embarrassment.

"It's this," he said at last. "You know how it was, Kurt, when we first came here. Of course we did the duty round of visits and so on, and went out in a quiet way, but we kept as clear as we could of the swell affairs. I made my work the excuse, and it was quite an honest excuse, though of course there were other reasons. Now I think it was a mistake. I think, for my own advantage, I ought not to have refused certain invitations—one gets a bad name at head-quarters—or is passed over; and if it were possible I should like to get back on the lists again——"

He stopped short, and Seleneck stared at him in puzzled silence. For the first time he had the opportunity of studying Wolff in a state of thorough confusion.

"Of course, that is easy enough," he said at last. "But all that sort of thing entails heavy expense and——"

"I think the expense justified," Arnim broke in hastily. "I am convinced that a certain outlay—a certain ostentation, if you like—is necessary to a rapid career. And I should be immensely grateful to you if you would help me."

"But your work—and the money?" Seleneck inquired bluntly.

"Both are my affairs," was the quick, irritable answer. The next minute he repented, and held out an apologetic hand. "I don't know what is the matter with me," he said. "I'm not fit companion for a savage. Don't take me seriously, there's a good fellow, and lend me a helping hand this once. I want it badly."

Seleneck shook his head.

"As you have just suggested, you know your own business best," he said gravely, "and I shall certainly do what I can. My uncle, the General Hulson, is giving a ball some time this winter. I and the wife aren't going. We can't afford it. But I daresay I could get you invitations; and once you are in the tide you will be able to swim on for yourselves. All the same"—he laid a kindly hand on Wolff's shoulder—"I can only tell you what you yourself know, that the officer who burns his mental and financial resources at both ends is lost. Es wäre Schade um dich, alter Junge!"

Wolff smiled.

"Don't worry," he said. "I shall take care of myself, and, at any rate—thanks for helping me."

The Hussar had by now finished his trial, and Seleneck, with a general salute, hurried out of the barracks. He was a sensitive man who felt a good many things acutely which his brain did not understand, and something in his friend's manner caused him an unexplained distress. He knew that Wolff had changed—his very actions were proof of the fact. It was not like him to part with an animal to which he was attached with the real affection of a good rider for a good horse; it was not like him to seek steps to his advancement in the patronage of his superiors. Wolff had never been a "place-hunter." Whilst always a favourite with those under whom he served, he had not sought their favour by any other means than his ready goodwill and the vigorous, unsparing fulfilment of his duty. And now he was talking of dancing attendance at every general's levee like any common Streber for whom all means are good enough so long as the end is attained.

Seleneck sighed as he hurried homewards. Yes, the change in his friend was there right enough, and it had left its trace on the man's whole bearing. He had been neither as frank nor as cheery nor as self-confident as was his wont, and there had been a grim determination in his voice and manner which warned against all interference. Above all things, no laughter and forced good spirits had concealed the fact that he was not at his ease. His whole newly born gravity had borne more the stamp of the stiff-lipped recklessness of an adventurer than the sober determination of a good soldier seeking a short cut to success; and Seleneck, who felt for Wolff an ungrudging admiration, boded no good for the future if the change continued. "I have seen a few dozen fellows go like that," he thought to himself, "and it has always ended in breakdown. Only in their case it was horses or cards, and I'll wager that neither play any part in Wolff's trouble. I wonder what the devil is the matter?"

He was still wondering when he reached home, after an unusually tedious and disagreeable walk. More than once he had been tempted to take the tram, in order to be quicker home to Elsa and the comfort of shifting on to her willing shoulders the burden of his doubts; but the consideration of expense held him back. After all, trams become too easily a habit. Two trams a day cost 20 pf. and six days amount to 1.20, and 1.30 will buy a bottle of Landwein good enough for the little "evenings" which one is bound to give if one is a good comrade. So Freiherr von Seleneck had walked, and those who had observed him had envied the immaculate uniform and the lordly bearing, making no guess at the empty pockets of the one and the entire innocence of the other. For lordliness and Seleneck were unknown to each other; and if he bore himself with a certain unconscious assertiveness, it was because he wore the King's uniform, and not in the least because he thought himself a great man.

Somewhat to his surprise and disappointment, his wife was not at the door to receive him when he arrived. The Bursche who helped him off with his coat told him the gnädige Frau had visitors and was in the drawing-room. Thither Seleneck at once repaired. Usually a sociable and hospitable man, he felt he could have dispensed with guests in the one hour of the day when he was certain of his wife's undivided company, but his slight annoyance evaporated as soon as he saw who the visitors were. Nora herself occupied the sofa, and her fair young face, lit by a faint, almost embarrassed, smile of greeting, inspired Seleneck with the brilliant reflection that she had no doubt come to confide the trouble, whatsoever it was, to his wife's sympathetic ears. The hope was immediately dispelled, however, by Frau von Seleneck herself, who drew his attention to the presence of a young man seated at the other end of the room, nursing an elegantly booted foot with the air of profoundest boredom.

"I do not think you have met before," she said. "This is Frau von Arnim's brother—Mr. Ingestre."

Seleneck accepted the languidly outstretched hand with a feeling so akin to alarm that he caught little more than a general impression of his guest's appearance. It was not often that his good-natured, easy-going wife rose to heights of real indignation, but when she did, the signs of storm were not absent, and he had recognised them all too clearly in the rather high-pitched voice and flushed face. Moreover, he became now acutely aware of a certain strained politeness in the atmosphere which had hitherto been unknown in the relations between the two women. Once he even caught Nora's eyes fixed on his with such an expression of trouble in their depths that he was convinced something unpleasant had happened, and became almost indignant with his Elsa, who firmly refused to allow the conversation to flow in any but the most cold and formal channels. The young man took no part in the talk, halting and spasmodic as it naturally became. He appeared to know no German; and as Seleneck's English was of a limited description, intercourse between them was more or less impossible. Seleneck took the opportunity to study this new arrival, of whom he had indeed heard little that was complimentary; but his cautious survey gave him no great satisfaction. In truth, Berlin and the few weeks of unlimited freedom had not improved Miles. He was, as always, scrupulously dressed and had a certain air of the "man-about-town" which contrasted with his otherwise uneasy and rather boorish manners. It was a little hard to imagine that he had ever held a lieutenant's commission, still harder to believe that he was Nora von Arnim's brother. There was no resemblance between the two, as Seleneck noticed with satisfaction. Miles's face was round and sallow, and he had a peculiar trick of furtively glancing about him which was directly opposed to Nora's frank and at that moment defiant gaze. As a matter of fact, though his critic did not know it, Miles had developed on his father's lines, with the one difference that the Rev. John's habits were those of a naturally nervous and diffident character, whereas Miles, having no nerves to complain of, had still a rooted objection to looking any one in the face. As he sat, alternately staring at the carpet and casting curious, supercilious glances round the poorly furnished drawing-room, Seleneck passed judgment on him.

"You drink, and can't stand it," he thought, and then, remembering Bauer, added, "and probably gamble."

Which proved that Seneleck, though neither a diplomatist nor a strategian, was at least something of a judge of character.

At that moment Nora rose hastily to her feet. The conversation had languished beyond hope of recovery, and, moreover, she had seen something in her host's expression which made her cheeks burn with a curious mixture of shame and anger.

"We must really go," she said nervously. "We have stayed far too long—I hope you will forgive us."

"It is always a pleasure to see you, gnädige Frau," Seleneck answered warmly. "You know that your welcome is always waiting you. And that reminds me—we are giving a little dinner next week—quite entre nous, you know—and of course it would not be complete without you and Wolff. And your brother"—he turned to Miles with a bow, which was answered by a blank stare—"I hope will do us the honour."

He had spoken with unusual kindness, because he felt that his thoughts at least had not been altogether hospitable, and he had every desire to atone to Nora as far as lay in his power. A cough from Frau von Seleneck warned him that he had instead been guilty of a mysterious faux pas. Nora's colour had deepened, and she was playing restlessly with her gloves.

"It's very good of you," she stammered. "Frau von Seleneck has also asked me—it was very kind. Of course I shall tell Wolff, and we will let you know."

The puzzled officer saw a scornful, angry smile pass over his wife's face; and feeling that he was altogether out of his depths, he kissed the extended hand and prepared to show his guests to the door of the flat.

At the general preparations for departure Miles Ingestre awoke from his dreary contemplation of the imitation Turkish carpet and, extricating one hand from his pocket, proffered it all round with signs of sincere relief. Frau von Seleneck bowed and ignored the offer, and her farewell with Nora was marked with a not less striking, if more inexplicable, rigidity.

Five minutes later, when her husband returned from his host's duties, he found her in floods of angry tears.

"Mein liebes Kind!" he exclaimed in despair. "Whatever is the matter? Has anything serious happened?"

"I have been insulted in my own house!" the little woman retorted, dabbing her eyes fiercely with a minute pocket-handkerchief. "I should hope that was serious enough!"

"Insulted! By whom?"

"By that—that English creature!"

"Do you mean Frau von Arnim? But, Menkenkind!—she is your best friend!"

"She is nothing of the kind. She is a conceited, pretentious, arrogant—oh! I don't know what, but I know I hate her with all my heart. And as for that brother——" With a determined effort she swallowed down a torrent of adjectives and sobbed huskily instead.

Seleneck seated himself on the arm of her chair and patted her on the shoulder.

"Perhaps one day you'll tell me all about it," he suggested, and waited patiently for results.

After a moment, the desire to tell her story overcame the desire to have a good cry, and Frau von Seleneck, leaning her head against her husband and squeezing his hand violently at moments of more than usual indignation, related the incidents which had led up to this climax. It appeared, in the first place, that Nora had arrived at an entirely inopportune moment.

"I was in the middle of making something extra for your supper," Elsa von Seleneck explained. "I shan't tell you what it is, as it is a surprise, and may still turn out all right, though I should think it was very doubtful, because Bertha is such an unutterable fool. At any rate, had it been any one else I should have been very angry, but as it was Nora I didn't mind so much. I told Bertha to bring her into the kitchen, but then she said she had brought her brother with her, so I came out. Well, of course I wasn't as tidy as I might have been, but—look at me, please, Kurt. Is there anything in my appearance to warrant anybody giggling?"

Seleneck looked at his wife gravely. She was very flushed and hot, and there was a suspicion of flour on the tip of her nose, which might have aggravated a ticklish sense of humour; but Seleneck knew better than to say so.

"Certainly not!" he said. "Who dared giggle, pray?"

"That—that boy!" Frau von Seleneck retorted. "Nora looked fearfully upset, and at first I thought she was ashamed of him, but afterwards I knew better—I knew she was ashamed of me!"

"My dear!" her husband protested.

"It's true—perfectly true. You wouldn't have recognised her. You know how sweet she was when she first came—so nice and grateful and simple—I really had quite a Schwärmerei for her. Everybody had—they couldn't help it. She won all hearts with her broken German and her girlish, happy ways. Well, to-day she was intolerable—stiff as a poker, my dear, and as disagreeable as a rheumatic old major on half-pay. I couldn't get a friendly word out of her, and all the time I could see her studying my dress and the furniture, as though she were trying to find the prices on them. As for that boy, he went on giggling. Every time I made an English mistake, he sniggered"—the little woman's voice rose with exasperation. "He tried to hide it behind his hand, but of course I saw, and it made me so angry I could have boxed his ears!"

"Pity you didn't," said Seleneck. "Dummer Junge!"

"That wasn't the worst. I tried to be friendly. I asked them both to dinner next week—and what do you think? She looked ever so uncomfortable, and said she was very sorry, but she was afraid they could not manage it. I don't know what excuse she meant to give, but that—that boy went and blurted the truth out for her. It appears that he had been to a dinner party last week and had been bored to extinction. At any rate, he said that wild horses, or some such creatures, wouldn't drag him to another business like that, and then he set to work and made fun of everything. My dear, I don't know what dinner it was, but it was exactly like ours will be—exactly, from the soup to the cheese!"

Seleneck pulled his moustache thoughtfully.

"He wasn't to know that," he said in faint excuse.

"But Nora knew, and she never said a word, never even tried to stop him; and when I said that I thought it was very bad manners to make fun of people whose hospitality one had enjoyed, she flared up and said that her brother was English, and that English people had different ways, and couldn't help seeing the funny side of things—she saw them herself!"

Seleneck got up and paced about restlessly. The matter was more serious than he thought, and an instinctive wisdom warned him that for the present at any rate it would be better to keep his troubles about Wolff to himself.

"I wonder what is the matter with them all?" he said at last. "Of course, the brother is simply an ill-behaved cub, but I confess I do not understand Frau von Arnim. She was always so amiable, and everybody thought Wolff the luckiest fellow alive—except myself."

"I can tell you exactly what is the matter," his wife said more calmly and with some shrewdness, "Marriage, after all, doesn't work miracles, and Frau von Arnim is no more German than I am Chinese. She is English right to the core, and at the bottom of everything she despises and hates us and our ways. They are not good enough for her any more, and she wants to go back to her own life and her own people. It was all right so long as she was alone with Wolff in the first few months. One didn't notice the gulf so much, but now she has her brother to remind her and support her, it will widen and widen. See if what I say is not true!"

"It's a very bad outlook for poor Wolff if it is true," Seleneck said gloomily. "He is absolutely devoted to her."

"Nevertheless, it will end badly," his wife answered, preparing to make her departure. "It is I who tell you so. Race and nationality are dividing oceans, and the man who tries to bridge them is a fool, and deserves his fate."

And with these words of wisdom she disappeared into the mysterious region of the kitchen.

CHAPTER VIII

RISING SHADOWS

Nora sat by the window and mended stockings. There was not very much light, for although it was still early afternoon and the winter sun stood high in the heavens, very few rays found their way into the fourth-floor rooms of No. 22, Adler Strasse. As Miles had said more than once, it was a poky hole. Nora remembered his words as she worked, and she looked up and studied the tiny apartment with a wondering regret. Yes; it was dark and poky; but why did the fact strike her so clearly and so constantly? Why was she doomed to see everything and everybody with another's eyes? For that was what had happened to her. One short month ago, this place had been her paradise, her own particular little Eden, and now it was a "poky hole"—because Miles had said so and because her common sense told her that he was right. Had, then, the magic which had blinded her against the reality ceased to act its charm—or altogether lost its power? Surely not. Her eyes fell on her husband's writing-table, with its burden of neatly arranged books and papers, and something in her softened to wistful tenderness. In her imagination she saw him sitting there, bent over his work in all-absorbed interest. She saw the thoughtful, knitted brows, the strong white hand guiding the pen through the intricacies of plans and calculations, the keen, searching eyes which were never stern for her, which, if they no longer flashed with the old unshadowed laughter, were always filled with the same unshaken, unaltered love. And she in her turn loved him. That she knew. There, and there alone, her brother's barbed shafts had fallen short, or had broken harmless against the steeled walls of defence. Her husband was still what he had always been—the one and only man who had ever counted in her life. But there was a difference. What the difference was she could not tell. Perhaps just that change had come into her love which had come into his eyes. It was still a great love, still unshaken, but it had lost the power of glorying in itself, of being happy, of rejoicing in its own strength and youth and unity. When Wolff entered the room her pulses quickened, but it was with a curious, inexplicable pain, and when he went away she breathed more easily. That most wonderful and rare of moments when they had thought and felt and lived as though they were one mind, one body, one soul had passed—perhaps for ever. They stood on different shores and looked at each other over the dividing stream with sad eyes of love and hopeless regret.