“What will it all come to, Fritz?” This Malchen asked with real anxiety in her voice. She was not slow to join two things together. It might well be that her mother should be induced by her pride to carry on the business for a while, so as to lose some of her money, but that she should, at last, be induced to see the error of her ways before serious damage had been done. Her financial position was too good to be brought to ruin by small losses. But during the period of her discomfiture she certainly would not be got to open her hand in that matter of the mitgift. Malchen’s own little affair would never get itself settled till this other question should have arranged itself satisfactorily. There could be no mitgift from a failing business. And if the business were to continue to fail for the next year or two, where would Malchen be then? It was not, therefore, wonderful that she should be in earnest.
“Your mother is a very clever woman,” said the lover.
“It seems to me that she is very foolish about this,” said Malchen, whose feeling of filial reverence was not at the moment very strong.
“She is a clever woman, and has done uncommonly well in the world. The place is worth double as much as when she married your father. But it is that very success which makes her obstinate. She thinks that she can see her way. She fancies that she can compel people to work for her and deal with her at the old prices. It will take her, perhaps, a couple of years to find out that this is wrong. When she has lost three or four thousand florins she’ll come round.”
Fritz, as he said this, seemed to be almost contented with this view of the case—as though it made no difference to him. But with the fraulein the matter was so essentially personal that she could not allow it to rest there. She had made up her mind to be round with her mother; but it seemed to her to be necessary, also, that something should be said to her lover. “Won’t all that be very bad for you, Fritz?”
“Her business with me will go on just the same.”
This was felt to be unkind and very unloverlike. But she could not afford at the present moment to quarrel with him. “I mean about our settling,” she said.
“It ought not to make a difference.”
“I don’t know about ought;—but won’t it? You don’t see her as I do, but, of course, it puts her into a bad temper.”
“I suppose she means to give you some fixed sum. I don’t doubt but she has it all arranged in her own mind.”
“Why doesn’t she name it, then?”
“Ah, my dear—mein schatz—there is nobody who likes too well to part with his money.”
“But when is there to be an end of it?”
“You should find that out. You are her child, and she has only two. That she should hang back is a matter of course. When one has the money of his own one can do anything. It is all in her own hand. See what I bear. When I tell her this or that she turns upon me as if I were nobody. Do you think I should suffer it if she were only just a client? You must persuade her, and be gentle with her; but if she would name the sum it would be a comfort, of course.”
The fraulein herself did not in the least know what the sum ought to be; but she thought she did know that it was a matter which should be arranged between her lover and her parent. What she would have liked to have told him was this—that as there were only two children, and as her mother was at any rate an honest woman, he might be sure that a proper dowry would come at last. But she was well aware that he would think that a mitgift should be a mitgift. The bride should come with it in her hand, so that she might be a comfort to her husband’s household. Schlessen would not be at all willing to wait patiently for the Frau’s death, or even for some final settlement of her affairs when she might make up her mind to leave the Peacock and betake herself to Schwatz. “You would not like to ask her yourself?” she said.
He was silent for a while, and then he answered her by another question. “Are you afraid of her?”
“Not afraid. But she would just tell me I was impertinent. I am not a bit afraid, but it would do no good. It would be so reasonable for you to do it.”
“There is just the difference, Malchen. I am afraid of her.”
“She could not bite you.”
“No;—but she might say something sharp, and then I might answer her sharply. And then there might be a quarrel. If she were to tell me that she did not want to see me any more in the Brunnenthal, where should we be then? Mein schatz, if you will take my advice, you will just say a word yourself, in your softest, sweetest way.” Then he got up and made his way across to the stable, where was the horse which was to take him back to Innsbruck. Malchen was not altogether well pleased with her lover, but she perceived that on the present occasion she must, perforce, follow his advice.
IV
The Frau Returns to the Simplicity of the Old Days
Two or three weeks went by in the Brunnenthal without any special occurrence, and Malchen had not as yet spoken to her mother about her fortune. The Frau had during this time been in more than ordinary good humour with her own household. July had opened with lovely weather, and the house
