Part 24

Franziska fairly blushed for pleasure; not that the skin of a fox was very valuable for her, but that the compliment was so open and marked. She came forward, in German fashion, and rather shyly shook hands with him in token of her thanks.

When Tita was getting ready for dinner I told her about the yellow fox. A married man must have no secrets.

“He is not capable of such a thing,” she says, with a grand air.

“But he did it,” I point out. “What is more, he glories in it. What did he say when I remonstrated with him on the way home! ‘Why,’ says he, ‘I will put an end to Krumm! I will abolish Krumm! I will extinguish Krumm!’ Now, madame, who is responsible for this? Who had been praising Franziska night and day as the sweetest, gentlest, cleverest girl in the world, until this young man determines to have a flirtation with her and astonish you?”

“A flirtation!” says Tita, faintly. “Oh no! Oh, I never meant that.”

“Ask him just now, and he will tell you that women deserve no better. They have no hearts; they are treacherous. They have beautiful eyes, but no conscience. And so he means to take them as they are, and have his measure of amusement.”

“Oh, I am sure he never said anything so abominably wicked,” cried Tita, laying down the rose that Franziska had given her for her hair. “I know he could not say such things. But if he is so wicked--if he has said them--it is not too late to interfere. I will see about it.”

She drew herself up as if Jupiter had suddenly armed her with his thunderbolts. If Charlie had seen her at this moment he would have quailed. He might by chance have told the truth, and confessed that all the wicked things he had been saying about woman’s affection were only a sort of rhetoric, and that he had no sort of intention to flirt with poor Franziska, nor yet to extinguish and annihilate Dr. Krumm.

The heartbroken boy was in very good spirits at dinner. He was inclined to wink. Tita, on the contrary, maintained an impressive dignity of demeanour; and when Franziska’s name happened to be mentioned she spoke of the young girl as her very particular friend, as though she would dare Charlie to attempt a flirtation with one who held that honour. But the young man was either blind or reckless, or acting a part for mere mischief. He pointed the finger of scorn at Dr. Krumm. He asked Tita if he should bring her a yellow fox next day. He declared he wished he could spend the remainder of his life in a Black Forest Inn, with a napkin over his arm, serving chopins. He said he would brave the wrath of the Furst by shooting a capercailzie on the very first opportunity, to bring the shining feathers home to Franziska.

When Tita and I went upstairs at night the small and gentle creature was grievously perplexed.

“I cannot make it out,” she said. “He is quite changed. What is the matter with him?”

“You behold, madam, in that young man the moral effects of vulpicide. A demon has entered into him. You remember, in ‘Der Freischutz,’ how--”

“Did you say vulpicide?” she asks, with a sweet smile. “I understood that Charlie’s crime was that he did not kill the fox.”

I allow her the momentary triumph. Who would grudge to a woman a little verbal victory of that sort? And, indeed, Tita’s satisfaction did not last long. Her perplexity became visible on her face once more.

“We are to be here three weeks,” she said, almost to herself, “and he talks of flirting with poor Franziska. Oh, I never meant that!”

“But what did you mean?” I ask her, with innocent wonder.

Tita hangs down her head, and there is an end to that conversation; but one of us, at least, has some recollection of a Christmas wager.

IV--CONFESSIO AMANTIS

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.