charlie was not in such good spirits next morning. he was standing outside the inn, in the sweet, resinous-scented air, watching franziska coming and going, with her bright face touched by the early sunlight, and her frank and honest eyes lit up by a kindly look when she passed us. his conscience began to smite him for claiming that fox.
we spent the day in fishing a stream some few miles distant from huferschingen, and franziska accompanied us. what need to tell of our success with the trout and the grayling, or of the beautiful weather, or of the attentive and humble manner in which the unfortunate youth addressed franziska from time to time?
in the evening we drove back to huferschingen. it was a still and beautiful evening, with the silence of the twilight falling over the lonely valleys and the miles upon miles of darkening pines. charlie has not much of a voice, but he made an effort to sing with tita:
“the winds whistle cold and the stars glimmer red,
the sheep are in fold and the cattle in shed;”
and the fine old glee sounded fairly well as we drove through the gathering gloom of the forest. but tita sang, in her low, sweet fashion, that swedish bridal song that begins:
“oh, welcome her so fair, with bright and flowing hair;
may fate through life befriend her, love and smiles attend her;”
and though she sang quietly, just as if she were singing to herself, we all listened with great attention, and with great gratitude too. when we got out of huferschingen, the stars were out over the dark stretches of forest, and the windows of the quaint old inn were burning brightly.
“and have you enjoyed the amusement of the day?” says miss fahler, rather shyly, to a certain young man who is emptying his creel of fish. he drops the basket to turn round and look at her face and say earnestly:
“i have never spent so delightful a day; but it wasn’t the fishing.”
things were becoming serious.
and next morning charlie got hold of tita, and said to her, in rather a shamefaced way:
“what am i to do about that fox? it was only a joke, you know; but if miss fahler gets to hear of it, she’ll think it was rather shabby.”
it was always miss fahler now; a couple of days before it was franziska.
“for my part,” says tita, “i can’t understand why you did it. what honour is there in shooting a fox?”
“but i wanted to give the skin to her.”
it was “her” by this time.
“well, i think the best thing you can do is to go and tell her all about it; and also to go and apologise to dr. krumm.”
charlie started.
“i will go and tell her, certainly; but as for apologising to krumm, that is absurd!”
“as you please,” says tita.
by-and-by franziska—or rather miss fahler—came out of the small garden and round by the front of the house.
“o miss fahler,” says charlie, suddenly,—and with that she stops and blushes slightly,—“i’ve got something to say to you. i am going to make a confession. don’t be frightened; it’s only about a fox—the fox that was brought home the day before yesterday; dr. krumm shot that.”
“indeed,” says franziska, quite innocently, “i thought you shot it.”
“well, i let them imagine so. it was only a joke.”
“but it is of no matter; there are many yellow foxes. dr. krumm can shoot them at another time; he is always here. perhaps you will shoot one before you go.”
with that franziska passed into the house, carrying her fruit with her. charlie was left to revolve her words in his mind. dr. krumm could shoot foxes when he chose; he was always here. he, charlie, on the contrary, had to go away in little more than a fortnight. there was no franziska in england; no pleasant driving through great pine woods in the gathering twilight; no shooting of yellow foxes, to be brought home in triumph and presented to a beautiful and grateful young woman. charlie walked along the white road and overtook tita, who had just sat down on a little camp-stool, and got out the materials for taking a water-colour sketch of the huferschingen valley. he sat down at her feet on the warm grass.
“i suppose i sha’n’t interrupt your painting by talking to you?” he says.
“oh dear, no,” is the reply; and then he begins, in a somewhat hesitating way, to ask indirect questions and drop hints and fish for answers, just as if this small creature, who was busy with her sepias and olive greens, did not see through all this transparent cunning.
at last she said to him, frankly:
“you want me to tell you whether franziska would make a good wife for you. she would make a good wife for any man. but then you seem to think that i should intermeddle and negotiate and become a go-between. how can i do that? my husband is always accusing me of trying to make up matches; and you know that isn’t true.”
“i know it isn’t true,” says the hypocrite; “but you might only this once. i believe all you say about this girl; i can see it for myself; and when shall i ever have such a chance again?”
“but dear me!” says tita, putting down the white palette for a moment, “how can i believe you are in earnest? you have only known her three days.”
“and that is quite enough,” says charlie, boldly, “to let you find out all you want to know about a girl if she is of the right sort. if she isn’t you won’t find out in three years. now look at franziska; look at the fine, intelligent face and the honest eyes; you can have no doubt about her; and then i have all the guarantee of your long acquaintance with her.”
“oh,” says tita, “that is all very well. franziska is an excellent girl, as i have told you often—frank, kind, well educated, and unselfish. but you cannot have fallen in love with her in three days?”
“why not?” says this blunt-spoken young man.
“because it is ridiculous. if i meddle in the affair i should probably find you had given up the fancy in other three days; or if you did marry her and took her to england you would get to hate me because i alone should know that you had married the niece of an innkeeper.”
“well, i like that!” says he, with a flush in his face. “do you think i should care two straws whether my friends knew i had married the niece of an innkeeper? i should show them franziska. wouldn’t that be enough? an innkeeper’s niece! i wish the world had more of ‘em, if they’re like franziska.”
“and besides,” says tita, “have you any notion as to how franziska herself would probably take this mad proposal?”
“no,” says the young man, humbly. “i wanted you to try and find out what she thought about me; and if, in time something were said about this proposal, you might put in a word or two, you know, just to—to give her an idea, you know, that you don’t think it quite so mad, don’t you know?”
“give me your hand, charlie,” says tita, with a sudden burst of kindness. “i’ll do what i can for you; for i know she’s a good girl, and she will make a good wife to the man who marries her.”
you will observe that this promise was given by a lady who never, in any circumstances whatsoever, seeks to make up matches, who never speculates on possible combinations when she invites young people to her house in surrey, and who is profoundly indignant, indeed, when such a charge is preferred against her. had she not, on that former christmas morning, repudiated with scorn the suggestion that charlie might marry before another year had passed? had she not, in her wild confidence, staked on a wager that assumption of authority in her household and out of it without which life would be a burden to her? yet no sooner was the name of franziska mentioned, and no sooner had she been reminded that charlie was going with us to huferschingen, than the nimble little brain set to work. oftentimes it has occurred to one dispassionate spectator of her ways that this same tita resembled the small object which, thrown into a dish of some liquid chemical substance, suddenly produces a mass of crystals. the constituents of those beautiful combinations, you see, were there; but they wanted some little shock to hasten the slow process of crystallisation. now in our social circle we have continually observed groups of young people floating about in an amorphous and chaotic fashion—good for nothing but dawdling through dances, and flirting, and carelessly separating again; but when you dropped tita among them, then you would see how rapidly this jellyfish sort of existence was abolished—how the groups got broken up, and how the sharp, businesslike relations of marriage were precipitated and made permanent. but would she own to it? never! she once went and married her dearest friend to a prussian officer; and now she declares he was a selfish fellow to carry off the girl in that way, and rates him soundly because he won’t bring her to stay with us more than three months out of the twelve. there are some of us get quite enough of this prussian occupation of our territory.
“well,” says tita to this long english lad, who is lying sprawling on the grass, “i can safely tell you this, that franziska likes you very well.”
he suddenly jumps up, and there is a great blush on his face.
“has she said so?” he asks, eagerly.
“oh yes! in a way. she thinks you are good-natured. she likes the english generally. she asked me if that ring you wear was an engaged ring.”
these disconnected sentences were dropped with a tantalising slowness into charlie’s eager ears.
“i must go and tell her directly that it is not,” said he; and he might probably have gone off at once had not tita restrained him.
“you must be a great deal more cautious than that if you wish to carry off franziska some day or other. if you were to ask her to marry you now she would flatly refuse you, and very properly; for how could a girl believe you were in earnest? but if you like, charlie, i will say something to her that will give her a hint; and if she cares for you at all before you go away she won’t forget you. i wish i was as sure of you as i am of her.”
“oh i can answer for myself,” says the young man, with a becoming bashfulness.
tita was very happy and pleased all that day. there was an air of mystery and importance about her. i knew what it meant; i had seen it before.
alas! poor charlie!
