"Oddaw lehdy."
"Other lady?" August nodded, rejoicing in big success, and Agatha closed
the door into her own room, where the general had been put for the time
so as to be spared the annoyance of the packing; then she sat down with
her hands in her lap, and the bouquet in her hands. "Now, August," she
said very calmly, "I want you to tell me-ich wunsche Sie zu mir
sagen--what other lady--wass andere Dame--these flowers belonged
to--diese Blumen gehorte zu. Verstehen Sie?"
August nodded brightly, and with German carefully adjusted to Agatha's
capacity, and with now and then a word or phrase of English, he conveyed
that before she and her Herr Father had appeared, there had been in
Weimar another American Fraulein with her Frau Mother; they had not
indeed staid in that hotel, but had several times supped there with the
young Herr Bornahmee, who was occupying that room before her Herr Father.
The young Herr had been much about with these American Damen, driving and
walking with them, and sometimes dining or supping with them at their
hotel, The Elephant. August had sometimes carried notes to them from the
young Herr, and he had gone for the bouquet which the gracious Fraulein
was holding, on the morning of the day that the American Damen left by
the train for Hanover.
August was much helped and encouraged throughout by the friendly
intelligence of the gracious Fraulein, who smiled radiantly in clearing
up one dim point after another, and who now and then supplied the English
analogues which he sought in his effort to render his German more
luminous.
At the end she returned to the work of packing, in which she directed
him, and sometimes assisted him with her own hands, having put the
bouquet on the mantel to leave herself free. She took it up again and
carried it into her own room, when she went with August to summon her
father back to his. She bade August say to the young Herr, if he saw him,
that she was going to sup with her father, and August gave her message to
Burnamy, whom he met on the stairs coming down as he was going up with
their tray.
Agatha usually supped with her father, but that evening Burnamy was less
able than usual to bear her absence in the hotel dining-room, and he went
up to a cafe in the town for his supper. He did not stay long, and when
he returned his heart gave a joyful lift at sight of Agatha looking out
from her balcony, as if she were looking for him. He made her a gay
flourishing bow, lifting his hat high, and she came down to meet him at
the hotel door. She had her hat on and jacket over one arm and she joined
him at once for the farewell walk he proposed in what they had agreed to
call their garden.
She moved a little ahead of him, and when they reached the place where
they always sat, she shifted her jacket to the other arm and uncovered
the hand in which she had been carrying the withered bouquet. "Here is
something I found in your closet, when I was getting papa's things out."
"Why, what is it?" he asked innocently, as he took it from her.
"A bouquet, apparently," she answered, as he drew the long ribbons
through his fingers, and looked at the flowers curiously, with his head
aslant.
"Where did you get it?"
"On the shelf."
It seemed a long time before Burnamy said with a long sigh, as of final
recollection, "Oh, yes," and then he said nothing; and they did not sit
down, but stood looking at each other.
"Was it something you got for me, and forgot to give me?" she asked in a
voice which would not have misled a woman, but which did its work with
the young man.
He laughed and said, "Well, hardly! The general has been in the room ever
since you came."
"Oh, yes. Then perhaps somebody left it there before you had the room?"
Burnamy was silent again, but at last he said, "No, I flung it up there I
had forgotten all about it."
"And you wish me to forget about it, too?" Agatha asked in a gayety of
tone that still deceived him.
"It would only be fair. You made me," he rejoined, and there was
something so charming in his words and way, that she would have been glad
to do it.
But she governed herself against the temptation and said, "Women are not
good at forgetting, at least till they know what."
"Oh, I'll tell you, if you want to know," he said with a laugh, and at
the words she--sank provisionally in their accustomed seat. He sat down
beside her, but not so near as usual, and he waited so long before he
began that it seemed as if he had forgotten again. "Why, it's nothing.
Miss Etkins and her mother were here before you came, and this is a
bouquet that I meant to give her at the train when she left. But I
decided I wouldn't, and I threw it onto the shelf in the closet."
"May I ask why you thought of taking a bouquet to her at the train?"
"Well, she and her mother--I had been with them a good deal, and I
thought it would be civil."
"And why did you decide not to be civil?"
"I didn't want it to look like more than civility."
"Were they here long?"
"About a week. They left just after the Marches came."
Agatha seemed not to heed the answer she had exacted. She sat reclined in
the corner of the seat, with her head drooping. After an interval which
was long to Burnamy she began to pull at a ring on the third finger of
her left hand, absently, as if she did not know what she was doing; but
when she had got it off she held it towards Burnamy and said quietly, "I
think you had better have this again," and then she rose and moved slowly
and weakly away.
He had taken the ring mechanically from her, and he stood a moment
bewildered; then he pressed after her.
"Agatha, do you--you don't mean--"
"Yes," she said, without looking round at his face, which she knew was
close to her shoulder. "It's over. It isn't what you've done. It's what
you are. I believed in you, in spite of what you did to that man--and
your coming back when you said you wouldn't--and--But I see now that what
you did was you; it was your nature; and I can't believe in you any
more."
"Agatha!" he implored. "You're not going to be so unjust! There was
nothing between you and me when that girl was here! I had a right to--"
"Not if you really cared for me! Do you think I would have flirted with
any one so soon, if I had cared for you as you pretended you did for me
that night in Carlsbad? Oh, I don't say you're false. But you're
fickle--"
"But I'm not fickle! From the first moment I saw you, I never cared for
any one but you!"
"You have strange ways of showing your devotion. Well, say you are not
fickle. Say, that I'm fickle. I am. I have changed my mind. I see that it
would never do. I leave you free to follow all the turning and twisting
of your fancy." She spoke rapidly, almost breathlessly, and she gave him
no chance to get out the words that seemed to choke him. She began to
run, but at the door of the hotel she stopped and waited till he came
stupidly up. "I have a favor to ask, Mr. Burnamy. I beg you will not see
me again, if you can help it before we go to-morrow. My father and I are
indebted to you for too many kindnesses, and you mustn't take any more
trouble on our account. August can see us off in the morning."
She nodded quickly, and was gone in-doors while he was yet struggling
with his doubt of the reality of what had all so swiftly happened.
General Triscoe was still ignorant of any change in the status to which
he had reconciled himself with so much difficulty, when he came down to
get into the omnibus for the train. Till then he had been too proud to
ask what had become of Burnamy, though he had wondered, but now he looked
about and said impatiently, "I hope that young man isn't going to keep us
waiting."
Agatha was pale and worn with sleeplessness, but she said firmly, "He
isn't going, papa. I will tell you in the train. August will see to the
tickets and the baggage."
August conspired with the traeger to get them a first-class compartment
to themselves. But even with the advantages of this seclusion Agatha's
confidences to her father were not full. She told her father that her
engagement was broken for reasons that did not mean anything very wrong
in Mr. Burnamy but that convinced her they could never be happy together.
As she did not give the reasons, he found a natural difficulty in
accepting them, and there was something in the situation which appealed
strongly to his contrary-mindedness. Partly from this, partly from his
sense of injury in being obliged so soon to adjust himself to new
conditions, and partly from his comfortable feeling of security from an
engagement to which his assent had been forced, he said, "I hope you're
not making a mistake."
"Oh, no," she answered, and she attested her conviction by a burst of
sobbing that lasted well on the way to the first stop of the train.