CHAPTER IX

The days that followed were like a dream to Marie. At first there were tears and misgivings. Wonderment at what the Schultzes were thinking of her staying away so long, racked her with remorse and suffering, but Von Pfaffen quieted her fears, assured her over and over of marriage as soon as his affairs could be arranged, as soon as the work in which he was engaged, should be finished.

There was nowhere to go, nothing to do. She had no money, and so miserably, she stayed on, hoping as each day came, that it would bring the marriage he was promising.

Sometimes she would look at the pile of papers on the littered table and plead with him not to wait till they were finished. Those piles of papers seemed interminable. Her training, her mentality, all her instincts told her, that after what had happened, she was eternally damned unless he married her, and it was that hope which kept her spirit alive. She lived from day to day waiting for this salvation. When he made his work, as he always did, his excuse, she would look up into his eyes and resolve to wait.

He had set her mind at rest as to what the Schultzes would say, by telling her that they knew where she was, that he had told them he had engaged her as his secretary.

"Isn't that a better position for you, than teaching stupid children or singing in a smoky café?" he asked.

He had sent old Lena away to visit her people, and given over his keys and the care of his rooms to Marie. In spite of the thought of whether the convent and her father would have approved of the state of affairs, while waiting for the marriage, her fears were gradually lulled and little by little, she came to take things almost as a matter of course.

She had wanted to go back to her room at the Schultzes for her few belongings. The only clothes she had were her little white dress and the coat which she had worn the night they came here from the "Two Eagles." But Von Pfaffen had laughed.

"Never mind those few rags, _Liebchen_," he said, "come with me and we'll get some more."

Marie had demurred at this, but he insisted.

"As my future wife, you owe it to me to look as pretty as you can! When I introduce you to my friends, you want me to be proud of you, don't you?"

Reluctantly Marie had come to agree that perhaps after all, this was right, that she could accept these things almost as a marriage gift. Surely it meant that she could trust him. She resolved, however, to select only what was absolutely necessary.

But her eyes sparkled over the lovely clothes which were the result of this decision, for although she had chosen only plain things, Von Pfaffen had insisted on adding one or two dainty dresses from which she had resolutely turned away.

Marie was in that state of her development, where absolute dependence upon other people was a necessity. She had clung to the Schultzes as she now clung to the belief and hope that this man would, in the end, exonerate her in the eyes of her conscience.

The chasm had been crossed, the bridge had been burned. She knew desperately that her only salvation was to cling to the position in which she found herself, she must go on in the hope that soon the wrong that had been done her might be righted.

Sometimes when he was away on this mysterious business of his, she used to sit and brood for hours, either staring into the fire or out of the window, never really seeing anything. She longed so for some one to confide in, some one to advise her. She thought of the good priest at the convent, who used to smile and pat her head after confession. If she could only have gone to him and asked his advice. But Von Pfaffen always laughed when she spoke of going to church, and as for confession, he had absolutely forbidden her that. After each one of these days of brooding, Marie would go to him when he returned home and ask again when they were to be married.

Sometimes he used to laugh as he lifted her chin with a long forefinger.

"What a little doubter!" he would say. "Come, come, have patience, all in good time!" and then he would so adroitly change the conversation that she found herself thinking of other things in spite of herself. Sometimes he would be pleased to take her seriously.

"Marie," he would say, looking deep into her eyes with his magnetically brilliant ones, "you are the same to me as my wife now; do you think a few words spoken by a priest will make me feel any differently? I'm afraid you don't love me, or you wouldn't doubt me!"

There was nothing for it, but resignation. If he said things were all right, they must be. If he said things would adjust themselves, they surely would. She must be content to wait.

Gradually, she came to learn that this man who had so cavalierly linked his life with hers, and who posed before the world as an indolent gentleman of leisure with no other vocation than his military duties, which, however, never seemed to take him to the barracks, had a secret engrossing occupation. Private matters, from the knowledge of which she was sternly shut out, occupied his constant attention and often took him away for long periods. At such times he gave her no knowledge of his destination or when he would return.

At first she felt strange, alone in the quiet apartment, but she grew accustomed to these journeys of his and to the sudden sound of his key in the door, for he would come back as quietly and with as little intimation as he had gone.

There were callers at all sorts of queer hours, men in uniform and men muffled in great coats with hats pulled down over their eyes, and always when they came, he would manage so that she would either go to her room or would remember some little shopping she had to do.

Once she had been awakened in the night by voices. She opened her door softly and looked out. Von Pfaffen and five men were seated about the dining-table. They were drinking, their faces were flushed, their manner excited. She heard one of them ask,

"Are you sure it will come?"

To which the eldest man in the party, a burly, square-jawed officer of high rank, replied with an oath:

"It must come!"

She saw Von Pfaffen rise to his feet and lift his wine glass.

"Here's to the Day!" he said.

The others rose also, and rang their glasses together.

"To the Day!"

She closed her door quietly. What did it mean? What was the day for which they were waiting.

In the evenings that followed she heard this toast again and again, and each time it stirred in her a vague dread of some impending evil.

Once she had had a glimpse of one of these visitors who evidently desired that his identity should not be disclosed. In the dim light, the face seemed strangely familiar.

The Captain's manner as he led his guest to the door was full of a servility she had never known him to show to any one, but while she was still wondering, the visitor caught sight of her and drew his coat collar hastily up over his face. Von Pfaffen turned angrily and slammed the door. She spent a long time puzzling as to where she had seen these features before. It seemed to her that they had been depicted in many photographs, but who he was she could not remember.

When she mentioned this incident later, Von Pfaffen told her unceremoniously to hold her tongue, though afterward, he made up to her with extra caresses for his rudeness.

Once she had overheard a word, a sudden phrase, that, though she was unable to quite understand its meaning, still filled her with breathless dread, a vague apprehension of this engrossing work of his.

One evening when they were alone, Marie spread a dainty little supper on the long table, pushing aside the scattered papers with a careless hand to make room for the tempting dishes. There had been a bottle of Tokay and he was flushed with the glow of its contents, but there was a suppressed exultation in his manner which she could not altogether attribute to the wine he had drunk. She had never seen him quite like this, he was always so much master of himself. She felt instinctively the force of some great underlying excitement that was gripping him.

"Little one," he bragged thickly, "some day you and I will have everything we can wish for. Some day soon, we will stand by and watch all the world rock--and when it settles down again, there will be only one country--the Fatherland!"

She was startled at the expression that came over his face. It glowed with ruthless greed, the will to dominate, to succeed, no matter what the cost.

"How strangely you talk!" she said. "What a wild dream!"

"Dream! _Herrgott_! It's no dream! It's the truth!" and he brought his fist down on the table so that the empty glasses danced. Then he suddenly turned quiet, sullen, and after vainly trying to bring him back to his gay mood again, Marie gathered the remains of the little feast and left the room.

Sometimes they conversed in French when they were together. The Captain spoke it flawlessly, without a trace of the German guttural, and often he would amuse the girl by imitating Parisian street gamins or French market women. He was an excellent mimic and Marie was secretly amazed at his ability to change his personality at will. It seemed so incongruous with the severe dignity of his character as she knew it.

He always spoke to her as though to a child he was trying to amuse, but as she listened, Marie was conscious of an indefinable apprehension, a vague fear of this man whom she could so little understand.

During the long, monotonous days when she was alone, she turned for solace and company to the books which lined his room. A new world was opened up for her of which she had never dreamed. She spent long hours pouring over Schopenhauer, Kant, Nietzsche, and even some of the Russian writers, Tolstoi, Gorky, Dostoieffsky. She began to see the answers to some of her own problems through the bitter eyes of these great Sad Ones.

One dull, cold day, when Von Pfaffen had been away longer than usual, she curled herself up in the great chair by the fire with a volume of Dostoieffsky's "Letters from the Underworld." It was one of those wild March days, whose fierceness proclaims it as the last gasp of winter, and the glow of the coals was very cheering.

She turned to the story, "_Apropos of Falling Sleet_." The title seemed appropriate for the day, and was in sharp contrast to the comfort of the fire.

But as she read through the bitter, stinging tirade which is poured out on the head of a poor little Petrograd prostitute, a tirade etched with the biting acid of the great Russian's most caustic pen, her face whitened, her lips trembled, the horror of it shook her with a dreadful fear. This first knowledge, that because men were brutal animals there must be women whose lot it was to suffer so, widened her eyes with a terror like a child must feel in a nightmare. She threw the book away from her and tried to forget it by looking over the scattered papers on the table. They proved uninteresting and unintelligible to her, and so with characteristic neatness, she arranged them in methodical piles. Von Pfaffen, entering in his usual unexpected manner, observed her occupation and was furiously angry with her, so angry that she was frightened. The pages of the book she had read, still clear in her mind, she burst into hysterical weeping.

His anger, however, was short-lived.

"Never mind," he said, "it's of no matter, but remember you are never to go near my papers again"; and Marie, grateful that the storm had blown over, dried her eyes, promising faithfully.

She had thought many times of going to see the Schultzes, but always there was something to prevent. She did send them a letter enclosing a bank note, and telling them that she was well and that soon she and the Captain were to be married, but the letter had come back unopened and she had concluded that for some reason they had given up the little flat and gone elsewhere.

Once she had timidly mentioned the Russian book to Von Pfaffen, but he had taken it from her clinging fingers and said that such books were not for pretty heads like hers to worry over.

Occasionally he took her to the theatre or the opera. She was in the midst of a world she had never known, filled with the color and life of Vienna, the sight of beautiful women in wonderful clothes, of sparkle, light. It was as though she were living in a different sphere. But his business engrossed him more and more as the days went by, and to Marie, his waning interest merely meant that these mysterious affairs of which she knew nothing, were taking up his entire attention.

One day Franz, the young Lieutenant, who had been her first sponsor at the "Two Eagles," walked in and found her busy about the place, a dainty little apron tied over her pretty morning frock, her yellow hair braided neatly about her small head. This was the first time he had seen her since those nights at the "Two Eagles." He stood and looked at her with mouth and eyes open.

"Ach," he said, "so?"

Marie's answer had been filled with dignity. There was something about this heavy-faced boy she always resented.

"I am the Captain's secretary," she said hastily, and then added as she saw the flat face broaden in an understanding grin, "the Captain and I are to be married as soon as all this work is finished," and she waved a small hand toward the table.

The grin on the Lieutenant's face grew into a laugh.

"Married?" he chuckled. "Married! That's good! I congratulate you, Fräulein," and gathering the papers he had come for, he turned on his heel and left.

Marie could hear his noisy chuckle above the sound of his clicking boot heels, as he hurried down the passage.

She was furiously angry at something she had seen in his eyes. His coarse laugh hurt her. All her old doubts, which Von Pfaffen's suave manner had managed to lull, came surging back. This stupid young Lieutenant, he, too, suspected what old Lena had hinted at. She threw herself on the couch and wept in an agony of bitterness and shame.

When Von Pfaffen came in, she ran to him with the tears still wet on her flushed cheeks and clung to him desperately.

"You _are_ going to marry me, aren't you?" she sobbed.

"Of course, we'll be married," he assured her, "of course, but we must wait. When this pressing work is finished, everything will be as you wish!"