Frau Ehrenberg sat with her knitting on the green velvet sofa in the
raised bow-window. Opposite her Else was reading a book. The white
head of the marble Isis gleamed from out the far dark part of the
room behind the piano, while a streak of light from the next room
played through the open door over the grey carpet. Else looked up
from her book through the window to the high tops of the trees in
the Schwarzenberg Park which were waving in the autumn wind and said
casually: "We might perhaps ring up George Wergenthin, to know if he's
coming this evening."
Frau Ehrenberg let her knitting fall on her lap. "I don't know," she
said. "You remember what a really charming condolence letter I wrote
him and what a pressing invitation I gave him to come to Auhof. He
didn't come and the coldness of his answer was quite marked. I wouldn't
ring him up."
"One shouldn't treat him like other people," answered Else. "He belongs
to the people whom one has occasionally to remind that one is still
alive. When he has been reminded he is extremely glad."
Frau Ehrenberg went on with her knitting. "It really won't come to
anything," she said quietly.
"It's not meant to come to anything," retorted Else. "I thought you
knew that by this time, mamma. We're good friends, nothing more--and
even that only at intervals; or do you really think that I'm in love
with him, mamma? Yes, when I was a little girl I was, in Nice, when we
played tennis together, but that is long past."
"Well--and Florence?"
"In Florence--I was more in love with Felician."
"And now?" asked Frau Ehrenberg slowly.
"Now ... you're probably thinking of Heinrich Bermann ... but you're
making a mistake, mother."
"I prefer to be making a mistake. But this summer I really quite had
the impression that----"
"I tell you," interrupted Else a little impatiently, "it isn't anything
and never was anything. On one solitary occasion, when we went out
boating on a sultry afternoon, you saw us from your balcony with your
opera-glasses, no doubt--it was only then that it became a little
dangerous. And even supposing we had fallen on each other's neck--which
as a matter of fact we never did--it wouldn't have meant anything. It
was simply a summer flirtation."
"And besides, he's supposed to be involved in a very serious
love-affair," said Frau Ehrenberg.
"You mean ... with that actress, mamma?"