North of Loch Lomond, Christian and Crammon wandered about shooting
snipes and wild ducks. The land was rough and wild; always within their
hearing thundered the sea; storm-harried masses of cloud raced across
the sky.
“My father will be far from pleased,” said Christian. “I’ve spent two
hundred and eighty thousand marks in the last ten months.”
“Your mother will persuade him to bear it,” Crammon answered. “Anyhow,
you’re of age. You can use several times that much without any one
hindering you.”
Christian threw back his head, and drew the salty air deep into his
lungs. “I wonder what little Letitia is doing,” he said.
“I think of the child myself at times. She shouldn’t be left entirely
to that old schemer,” Crammon replied.
Her kiss no longer burned on Christian’s lips, for other flames had
touched them since. Like laughing _putti_ in a painting, the lovely
faces fluttered about him. Many of them, to be sure, were laughing now
no more.
In a dark gown, emerging from between two white columns, Eva had taken
leave of him. He seemed to see her still--the brunette pallor of her
face, her inexpressibly slender hand, the most eloquent hand in the
world.
Jestingly and familiarly she had spoken to him in the language of her
German homeland, which seemed more piercingly sweet and melodious in
her mouth than in any other’s.
“Where are you going, Eidolon?” she had asked carelessly.
He had answered with a gesture of uncertainty. He evidently thought
that his going or coming was indifferent to her.
“It isn’t nice of you to go without asking leave,” she said, and put
her hands on his shoulders. “But perhaps it is just as well. You
confuse me. I am beginning to think of you, and I don’t want to do
that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t. Why do you need reasons?”
The dead and swollen face of Denis Lay rose up before them, and they
both saw it in the empty air.
After a little he had dared to ask: “When shall we meet again?”
“It depends on you,” she had answered. “Always let me know where you
are, so that I can send for you. Of course, it’s nonsense, and I won’t.
But it might just happen that in some whim I may want you and none
other. Only you must learn----” She stopped and smiled.
“What, what must I learn?”
“Ask your friend Crammon. He’ll teach you.” After these words she had
left him.
The sea roared like a herd of steers. Christian stopped and turned to
Crammon. “Listen, Bernard, there’s a matter that comes back curiously
into my mind. When I last talked to Eva she said there was something I
was to learn before I could see her again. And when I asked after her
meaning, she said that you could give me a hint. What is it? What am I
to learn?”
Crammon answered seriously: “You see, my boy, these things are rather
complicated. Some people like their steak overdone, others almost raw,
most people medium. Well, if you don’t know a certain person’s taste
and serve the steak the way you yourself prefer it, you risk making a
blunder and looking like a fool. People are far from simple.”
“I don’t understand you, Bernard.”
“Doesn’t matter a bit, old chap! Don’t bother your handsome head about
it. Let’s go on. This damned country makes me melancholy.”
They went on. But there was an unknown sadness in Christian’s heart.