“I could not prevent it, and can do nothing against it,” said Ferdinanda.
“You might have prevented it, and you could still do something before matters come to the worst, and they burn the roof over our heads!” exclaimed Aunt Rikchen; “but I cannot see my hand before my eyes; I cannot distinguish a church-tower from a knitting-needle.”
“The old song!” said Ferdinanda.
“Every bird sings as he has learned,” exclaimed Aunt Rikchen; “and if my ways do not please you, it is only because in these days every chicken is wiser than the hen; for if I am not your mother, I have worried myself as much as two mothers about you, and have asked myself a hundred thousand times what is to come of it? But perhaps Providence may have willed it so; it is always, one way or another, kinder to you than to other people. And I am not at all sure that your father has not always intended it so, for I always had my suspicions of that thick red pencil, when no one else was allowed to touch his plans with a finger; and any old woman can see how highly he thinks of him, and he is extremely brave and good, and it would keep the family together, if you were wise and married him before in these bad times everything flies up the chimney.”
“Reinhold?”
“Did you think I meant the Emperor of Fez and Morocco? But you only pretend to be astonished, and jump up off your chair in order to make a poor old thing like me tremble in all her limbs, as if my nerves were not already sufficiently dérangés—that is what you call it, is not it?”
“I got up because it is high time for me to go,” said Ferdinanda. “Goodbye, aunt.”
She had gone a few steps towards the door, when the portière which covered it was slowly drawn aside.
“Mi perdona, Signora! Signora Frederica, your most obedient servant!”
Ferdinanda stood still in horror.
“What did Antonio come for at this moment?”
“Mi perdona!” repeated Antonio. “I fear that the ladies did not hear me knock at the door, so I ventured to walk in.”
And he pointed carelessly in his easy Italian fashion to some books which he held in his hand.
“This is not the day for our lesson,” said Ferdinanda.
“I cannot come tomorrow, signora, so I ventured—”
“I have no time today. You see I am just going out.”
She said it in a hasty tone, for which there was apparently not the smallest occasion, and which was a wonderful contrast to the Italian’s courteous, “Mi ritiro, e le domando perdona—buona sera, signora,” and the low bow with which he passed again through the portière.
“Why were you so sharp with the young man?” asked Aunt Rikchen.
Ferdinanda did not answer; she was listening for the soft footstep as it retired, and for the sound of the closing door. Would it be the glass door leading to the garden, or the other one which led to the entrance hall? It was the glass door; he had not gone out then. And yet. Why had she said that she was going out? Should she give it up?
But there was no time to think. With a half-murmured: “Goodbye, aunt, I will make haste back,” she had left the room and was standing in the street, almost without knowing how she had got there.
She had intended to take a cab at the corner of the street, but the stand was empty; she must make up her mind to walk along the Springbrunnenstrasse as far as the Parkstrasse, where she hoped to find one. Perhaps it would be better; she could more easily make sure of not being followed than in a close carriage. As she walked hastily along she looked back two or three times; a few people met her; no one was behind her; she breathed more freely; he had not followed her. She feared no one but him.
But he whom she feared to see behind her was at that moment far in front.
Since this morning Antonio had felt certain that the relations between the handsome young officer and Ferdinanda had entered on a new stage, and probably something was going to take place, something that he must know at any price, that he would know, however secretly they might go about it. He had, therefore, made the lesson which he gave her once a week in his own language, an excuse for approaching her, in order to find fresh food for his jealous curiosity, which imagined all possible things. He had found her, who so seldom left the house in the evening, ready to go out, without having ordered the carriage as she usually did. She had sharply rebuffed him, as if she suspected his motive; and what at another time would have irritated him, now delighted him; his suspicions had taken a definite form; a rendezvous was in question! His determination to follow on her track was made even before the portière had closed behind him.
He had purposely shut the garden door loudly in order that Ferdinanda might believe that he had not left the grounds. But when he got into the garden he had turned to the right and passed through an iron gate into the courtyard, and in a few steps was in the entrance hall, through which he passed into the street. The cabstand at the corner was his first aim also; he was obliged to pass the window at which Aunt Rikchen sat; but if he stooped his head would be hidden by the elder bush in the front garden. It was a disappointment to find the cabstand empty, but she would experience the same disappointment, but not before she got to the corner of the street. At this corner there was a small public-house which
