The two brothers-in-law sit alone in the circle of light which a garden lamp throws in a corner of the garden shaded by elder trees.

Dinner is long over, they have ceased laughing at Litzi's childish pranks and remarks; she has become sleepy, and Elsa has taken her away to lay her in her pretty little white bed. The two men, meanwhile, are smoking their cigars in the open air.

"Erwin, do you happen to know these Harfinks?" Felix asks his brother-in-law quite suddenly, in the embarra.s.sed tone of a humiliated, bored man, and with the slightly husky voice which distinguishes all generations of indulgent and effeminate races.

The "certain Lanzberg" is indisputably of an attractive appearance--the beauty of his sister in a man--and yet softer. All the lines of his face are rounder, less decided; the features of a faultless regularity, the eyes still bluer, and yet the whole face lacks Elsa's lovely, evident peace; the eyes are always weary and half closed; his full lips wear a suffering, tormented expression, and the light brown color of his complexion, in its natural color like Elsa's, is nevertheless ashy in comparison to her healthy pallor, and furrowed with little wrinkles.

"Do you know these Harfinks?" he asks, softly.

"Harfink fitted up my sugar factory," replies Erwin, and glances closely at his brother-in-law. "In consequence I have met him several times. Recently, in Marienbad, he reminded me of our acquaintance, and introduced me to his wife and daughter."

"Strange man!" says Felix, shaking his head.

"Yes, strange, silly! His wife is repulsive, both are very ordinary."

"Yes, both," repeats Felix, and with the toe of his boot draws figures in the sand. "But the daughter?"

"Well, the daughter?" Erwin glances still more attentively at his brother-in-law's face.

"She is very well educated," murmurs the latter, indistinctly.

"Her education was probably acquired in a very n.o.ble boarding-school,"

remarks Erwin, dryly. "During the ten minutes of our acquaintance, she used the word 'aristocratic' three times, and twice complained that society in the Kursaal was so mixed. Besides that, she found the country monotonous, the weather dull, the music '_agacante_,' and concluded by saying, one rails at Marienbad and yet it was tiresome everywhere, for her friend Laure de Lonsigny wrote her quite desperate letters from Luchon."

Felix has flushed more and more deeply during this pitiless account.

"Poor girl, how embarra.s.sed she must have been," says he, excusingly.

"Embarra.s.sed?" Erwin shrugged his shoulders. "She had a great deal of self-possession."

"Is not a certain kind of self-possession only a form of embarra.s.sment?" asked Felix, shyly.

But Erwin evidently has no inclination to be lenient to Linda's faults.

He suspects the approach of something which must shatter Felix's undermined existence, and seeks a means of meeting it.

"You, perhaps, do not even think her pretty," says Felix, vexedly, hesitating.

"Pretty, no; but dazzlingly beautiful. It is a pity that she has parents who, with all their perversity, are yet so respectable," says Erwin with unmistakable emphasis.

Then Felix bursts out: "It is not only horrible, but absolutely indecent to speak of a girl with whom, by your own account, you have spoken for scarcely ten minutes, in such a repulsive manner." And as his brother-in-law, astonished at such an unusual outbreak from Felix, yet looks at him without the slightest harshness or coldness, the "certain Lanzberg" grows red and murmurs, "Pardon that I ventured to reprove you."

Erwin clenches his fist and opens it again with the gesture of a man who has conquered a painful excitement.

Such feelings often came over him in intercourse with his brother-in-law, although he felt great pity and much sympathy for the good, shy fellow; but his a.s.sociation with him was never wholly free, open, but always contained a tinge of sympathetic politeness, and there was never that warm abruptness which is a healthy symptom of manly friendship. Sad yielding on one side; on the other good-natured advances. This, after a half year's acquaintance, was the relation of the two brothers-in-law. One must--alas! it could not be otherwise--treat Felix as a precious but broken and only artificially mended cup of Sevres porcelain.

"Why does my opinion of the Harfinks interest you?" asks Erwin, now going straight to his object.

For a while there is perfect silence, only animated by the soft voices of the night, and the fluttering of a moth which has wandered behind the tall shade of the garden lamp and has been singed.

"Erwin!" cries Felix, his hands convulsively clasped, in his large feverish eyes a look such as Erwin had only once before seen, and then in a dying man's who suddenly longed to live. "Do you think that a man like me has a right to marry?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Do you think a man like me has a right to marry?"]

"No!" sounded harshly and firmly.

It was not Erwin who answered. In the circle of light which the garden lamp shed amid the gray moonlight, a tall white form had placed itself opposite Felix, behind Erwin's chair.

"No!"

Erwin himself shudders; his wife seems uncanny. So beautiful, so pale, with such deathly tenderness, must have looked the angel when he drove the beings whom he loved out of Paradise.

Felix lets his head sink in his hands. Elsa bends over him and caresses him like a sick child. Erwin wishes to withdraw, but Felix calls him back. "Stay, there are no secrets between us. I should have never dared take the hand which you held out to me, had I not been convinced that you know---- Yes, Elsa," he continued, very bitterly, "you despise me, it was cowardly, it was unconscionable to even think of it, but if you knew what it is to be weary and alone, with no one on whom to lean for support! To have no one to whom one can be anything, for whom one can sacrifice oneself, to be perpetually condemned to think of oneself when thought is torment and loathing--to be sometimes permitted by pitying people to look on at happiness which awakes all the furies in one--yes, at first it was a comfort to me to flee to you, to breathe the same air with two happy people--but then--your beaming eyes, the little tendernesses of your child, even the alms of love which you gave me, all made my blood hot and me giddy. My G.o.d! I have injured no one but myself! Must I be condemned for life? Ten years is usually considered enough for a heavy crime, and I would gladly exchange these last ten years with any galley slave."

Since his return to his fatherland no one had heard him say so much; the gentle, quiet man is not to be recognized.

Elsa stands near him, white and sad, tears are in her eyes, but the severe expression of her mouth has not softened. Erwin is more moved than she. "Felix," says he, "you go too far. You must not marry the young Harfink; she is worldly and selfish, and would seek in a marriage with you only the satisfaction of her social vanity."

Felix laughs bitterly.

"But the world is large. You must find a girl who loves you for yourself, who will raise you above yourself, who----"

Felix's eyes rest on his brother-in-law, then they turn to Elsa.

"It is all of no use, Erwin;" he suddenly interrupts him and rises.

"And even if I found what is not to be found, and even if an angel came down from heaven to console me, I must repulse her. I have no right to marry for the sake of the children who would bear my name. Ask Elsa for her opinion."

Elsa bows her head and is silent. He gives Erwin his hand, seizes his hat and, without having bid Elsa good-night, with the bearing of an offended man, takes a few hasty steps--then he turns, and as he sees Elsa still standing motionless, her face drawn with deepest misery, near the chair which he has left, he hurries back to her and takes her in his arms. "I was wrong to be angry, Elsa," murmurs he. "I know you must love me to have forgiven me. It may well be indifferent to him,"

with a half nod to Erwin. "I was not myself to-day; have patience with me."

The tears of the brother and sister mingle. Then Felix tears himself away.

"Will you come back to-morrow?" asks Elsa.

"Yes, to say farewell."

"My G.o.d! what are you going to do?"

"I am going away--it is better for me elsewhere--and you, you are very good to me, but----you do not need me."

With that he goes. Erwin accompanies him. Then he returns to his wife, whom he finds where he had left her. She is not one of those who for long yield themselves to the weak enjoyment of tears. Her eyes are dry again, but so indescribably sad and staring that Erwin would rather see them wet. He draws her on his knees and whispers a thousand calming words of tenderness to her, but she remains absent.

"So the young Harfink has robbed him of his senses?" she murmurs interrogatively.

"So it seems!"

"Poor Felix!--I was very hard to him--I dared not be otherwise. I fear, I fear it is all in vain--he will yield. You have the same thought!"

"To dissuade any obstinate man is hard, but sometimes at least successful--to dissuade a weak man is quite easy, but always unsuccessful," replies Erwin. "Nevertheless let us hope."

"Concerning Felix, hope fails," said Elsa. "O Erwin, Erwin, often it seems to me that father had no right to persuade him to live at that time!"