“If it hadn’t been for the money you gave
me I should have starved. It was all I had to
live on.”
He made his solemn, obsequious bow, and went out.
Philip felt a little lump in his throat. He seemed
to realise in a fashion the hopeless bitterness of
the old man’s struggle, and how hard life was
for him when to himself it was so pleasant.
Philip had spent three months in Heidelberg when one
morning the Frau Professor told him that an Englishman
named Hayward was coming to stay in the house, and
the same evening at supper he saw a new face.
For some days the family had lived in a state of excitement.
First, as the result of heaven knows what scheming,
by dint of humble prayers and veiled threats, the
parents of the young Englishman to whom Fraulein Thekla
was engaged had invited her to visit them in England,
and she had set off with an album of water colours
to show how accomplished she was and a bundle of letters
to prove how deeply the young man had compromised himself.
A week later Fraulein Hedwig with radiant smiles announced
that the lieutenant of her affections was coming to
Heidelberg with his father and mother. Exhausted
by the importunity of their son and touched by the
dowry which Fraulein Hedwig’s father offered,
the lieutenant’s parents had consented to pass
through Heidelberg to make the young woman’s
acquaintance. The interview was satisfactory
and Fraulein Hedwig had the satisfaction of showing
her lover in the Stadtgarten to the whole of Frau Professor
Erlin’s household. The silent old ladies
who sat at the top of the table near the Frau Professor
were in a flutter, and when Fraulein Hedwig said she
was to go home at once for the formal engagement to
take place, the Frau Professor, regardless of expense,
said she would give a Maibowle. Professor Erlin
prided himself on his skill in preparing this mild
intoxicant, and after supper the large bowl of hock
and soda, with scented herbs floating in it and wild
strawberries, was placed with solemnity on the round
table in the drawing-room. Fraulein Anna teased
Philip about the departure of his lady-love, and he
felt very uncomfortable and rather melancholy.
Fraulein Hedwig sang several songs, Fraulein Anna played
the Wedding March, and the Professor sang Die Wacht
am Rhein. Amid all this jollification Philip
paid little attention to the new arrival. They
had sat opposite one another at supper, but Philip
was chattering busily with Fraulein Hedwig, and the
stranger, knowing no German, had eaten his food in
silence. Philip, observing that he wore a pale
blue tie, had on that account taken a sudden dislike
to him. He was a man of twenty-six, very fair,
with long, wavy hair through which he passed his hand
frequently with a careless gesture. His eyes
were large and blue, but the blue was very pale, and
they looked rather tired already. He was clean-shaven,
and his mouth, notwithstanding its thin lips, was
