Henry Handel Richardson

“ The door of the room was flung open, and Maurice, entering hotly, threw his hat on the table. He did not perceive his visitor till it was too late.
“Madeleine! You here!” he exclaimed in surprise and embarrassment. “I beg your pardon. I didn’t see you,” and he made haste to recover his hat.
“Yes, don’t faint, it’s I, Maurice.—But what’s the matter? Why are you so angry with the person? Does she pry on you?” ”

“ Throwing a cautious glance over her shoulder, Frau Krause said behind her hand: “It’s my opinion there’s a woman in the case.”
“You don’t need to whisper; your opinion is an open secret,” answered Madeleine drily. “There is a woman, and there she sits, as you no doubt very well know.” As she spoke, she pointed to a photograph of Louise, which stood on the lid of the piano. ”

“ In your eyes nothing is good or pure. And you make everything you touch dirty. You’re not fit to take a decent woman’s name on your lips!”
She sprang up from her chair. “And that’s my thanks!—for all I’ve done—all I’ve sacrificed for you! I’m not fit to take a decent woman’s name on my lips! For shame, for shame! For who has made me what I am but you! Oh, what a fool I was, ever to let you cross this door! You!—a man who is content with other men’s leavings!” ”

“ Madeleine continued her interrogatory.
“Well, I can’t just say that,” replied the woman, with what seemed a spice of regret. “He’s paid up pretty regular till now—though of course one never knows how long he’ll keep on doing it. But it goes against my heart to see a young man, who might be one’s own son, acting as he does. When he first came here, there wasn’t a decenter young man anywhere than Herr Guest—if I had a complaint, it was that he was too much of a steady-goer. ”

“ He had hung his coat and hat on a peg, and now came forward to the table.” Move?” he said once again, and prolonged the word as though the channel of thought it opened up was new to him.
“Good gracious, yes!—If one’s not satisfied with one’s rooms, one moves, that’s all. There’s nothing strange about it.”
He murmured that the idea had never occurred to him, and was about to draw up a chair, when his eye caught a letter that was lying on the lowered flap of the bureau. In patent agitation, and without excusing himself, he seized it and tore it open. Madeleine saw his face darken. ”

“ And still again, when the sluggish dawn was creeping in, she had suddenly turned her head: “But now you can go away. You’re free to leave me. Nothing binds you to a woman like me—who can’t be content with one man.” ”

“ You can’t please him anyhow. He never gives you a civil word. He doesn’t work, he doesn’t cat, and he’s getting so thin that his clothes just hang on him.”
“Is he drinking?” interrupted Madeleine in the same matter-of-fact way, with her eye on the main points of probable offence.
“Well, I can’t just say that,” answered Frau Krause. “Not but what it mightn’t be better if he was. It’s the ones as don’t drink who are the hard ones to get on with, in my experience. Young gentlemen who like their liquor, are of the goodnatured, easy-going sort. ”

“ But against this, his reason protested; for, if the letter from Krafft had not arrived, he would have known nothing. He did not believe she would have told him—would there, indeed, have been any need for her to do so? Nothing was changed between them; she lived at his side, just as before; and Krafft was out of the way.—At other times, though, he asked himself if he were not a fool to be surprised at what had occurred. ”

“ The master himself, in his imperturbable way—he chose to act as if, all along, he had had this surprise for people up his sleeve—the master was in transports. His stern face wore an almost genial expression; he smiled, and talked loudly, and, when the performance was over, hurried to and fro, full of importance, shaking hands and accepting congratulations, with a fine shade of reserve. Dove’s fellow-pupils were enraptured for Schwarz’s sake ”

“ When she understood, as she soon did, that her shameless admission, and still more, his punishment of her for it, was not to be followed up by any new development; that, in place of subduing her mentally as well, he was going to be content to live on as they had been doing; that, in fact, he had already dropped back into the old state of things, before she was well aware of what was happening: then her passing mood of submission swept over into her old flamboyant contempt for him. The fact of his having beaten her became a weapon in her hands ”

“ Of late he had passed out of her life; she had been too busy to think of him. Now, however, that she was at the end of this period, the fancy seized her to see him again; and she took a resolution which had, perhaps, been dormant in her for some time.
“I don’t see why I shouldn’t,” she reasoned. “No one will know. And even if they do, I’m leaving, and it won’t matter.”
And so she pulled her hat further over her face, and brisked up her steps in the direction of the BRAUSTRASSE—a street which she disliked, and never entered if she could avoid it. ”

“ She went out without a further word. But on the landing at the bottom of the first flight of stairs, she stood irresolute. She felt annoyed with herself that she had allowed an unfriendly tone to dominate their brief interview. ”