Eleanore was right. Her father was quite pleased to see Daniel and
Benda. "I am proud of you," he said to Daniel, "and for your visit to me
I thank you. I feel flattered."
"If you had stayed a half hour longer, you might feel differently about
it," replied Daniel.
Eleanore gave her father a brief account of what had taken place at the
concert. Jordan listened attentively, looked at Daniel, and, with a
wrinkle on his forehead, said, "Is it possible?"
"Yes, it is possible; it had to happen," said Daniel.
"Well, if it had to happen, it is a good thing that it is over," was the
dispassionate response.
Eleanore took her father's hand; the back of it was covered with big
yellow spots; she kissed it. Then she set the table, got everything
ready for the meal, went in and out of the room in a most cheerful way,
and did not forget to put the water on the stove to boil. She had asked
about Gertrude as soon as she came home, but for some reason or other
her father seemed disinclined to say anything on the subject, from which
Eleanore inferred that there was nothing seriously wrong.
Finally they sat down at the table. Eleanore was quite pleased to see
the three men whom she liked so much gathered together in this way.
There was a feeling of gratitude in her heart toward each one of them.
But she was also hungry: she ate four sandwiches, one right after the
other. When she saw that Daniel was not eating, she stepped up behind
his chair, bent over him so far that the loose flowing hair from her
temples tickled his face, and said: "Are you embarrassed? Or don't you
like the way the sausages have been prepared? Would you like something
else?"
Daniel evaded the questions; he was out of sorts. And yet in the bottom
of his heart the contact with the girl made a pleasing impression on
him; it was in truth almost a saving impression. For his thoughts
continually and obstinately returned to the girl who had fled, and whose
presence he missed without exactly wishing that she were at the table
with the others.
Benda spoke of the political changes that might, he feared, take place
because of the death of Gambetta. Jordan, who always took a warm
interest in the affairs of the Fatherland, made a number of true and
humane remarks about the tense feeling then existing between France and
Germany, whereupon the door to Gertrude's room opened and Gertrude
herself stood on the threshold.
Deep silence filled the room; they all looked at her.
Strangely enough, she was not wearing the dress she had on at the
concert. She had put on the Nile green dress, the one in which Daniel
saw her for the first time. Jordan and Eleanore hardly noticed the
change; they were too much absorbed in the expression on the girl's
face. Daniel was also astonished; he could not look away.
Her expression had become softer, freer, brighter. The unrest in which
her face had heretofore been clouded had disappeared. Even the outlines
of her face seemed to have changed: the arch of her eyebrows was higher,
the oval of her cheeks more delicate.
She leaned against the door; she even leaned her head against the door.
Her left hand, hanging at her side, seemed indolent, limp, indifferent.
Her right hand was pressed against her bosom. Standing in this position,
she studied the faces of those who were sitting at the table, while a
timid and gentle smile played about her lips.
Jordan's first suspicion was that she had lost her mind. He sprang up,
and hastened over to her. But she gave him her hand, and offered no
resistance at all to being led over to the table.
Suddenly she fixed her silent gaze on Daniel. He got up involuntarily,
and seized the back of his chair. His colour changed; he distorted the
corners of his mouth; he was nervous. But when Gertrude withdrew her
hand from her father's and extended it to him, and when he took it and
his eye met hers--he could not help but look at her--his solicitude
vanished. For what he read in her eyes was an unreserved and irrevocable
capitulation of her whole self, and Daniel was the victor. His face grew
gentle, grateful, dreamy, and resplendent.
It was not merely the sensuous charm revealed in the feeling which
Gertrude betrayed that moved him: it was the fact that she came as she
had come, a penitent and a convert. The sublime conviction that he had
been able to transform a soul and awaken it to new life touched him
deeply.
This it was that drew him to Gertrude more than her countenance, her
expression, and her body combined. And now he saw all three--her
countenance, her expression, and her body.
Jordan had a foreboding of something. He felt that he would have to take
the girl in his arms and flee with her. Pictures of future misfortune
crowded upon his imagination; the hope he had cherished for Gertrude was
crushed to the earth.
Benda stared at his plate in silence. Nevertheless, just as if he had
other eyes than those with which he saw earthly things, he noticed that
Eleanore's hands and lips were trembling, that with each succeeding
second she grew paler, that she cast a distrustful glance first at her
father, then at her sister, and then at Daniel, and that she finally, as
if overcome with a feeling of exhaustion, slipped away from her place by
the table lamp, stole into a corner, and sat down on the hassock.
But after they had all resumed their seats at the table, Gertrude
sitting between Benda and her father, Eleanore came up and sat down next
to Daniel. She never took her eyes off Gertrude; she looked at her in
breathless surprise, Gertrude smiled as she had smiled when leaning
against the door, timidly and passionately.
From that moment on, the conversation lagged, Benda suggested to his
friend that it was time for them to leave. They thanked Jordan for his
hospitality and departed. Jordan accompanied them down the stairs and
unlocked the front door. When he returned, Eleanore was just going to
her room: "Well, Eleanore, are you not going to say good-night?" he
called after her.
She turned around, nodded conventionally, and closed the door.
Gertrude was still sitting at the table. Jordan was walking up and down
the room. Suddenly she sprang up, stepped in his way, forced him to
stop, threw her arms about his neck, and kissed him on the forehead. She
had never done that before.
She too had gone to sleep. Jordan felt terribly alone. He heard the
street door open and close; he heard some one enter. It was Benno.
Jordan thought that his son would come in, for he must have seen the
light through the crack of the door. But Benno evidently had no desire
to see his father. He went to his room at the other end of the hall,
and closed the door behind him just as if he were a servant.
"They are all three in bed," thought Jordan to himself, "and what do I
know about them?"
He shook his head, removed the hanging lamp from its frame, and locked
the room, holding the lamp very carefully as he did so.