Part 49

The first thing his friend told him was that he was to join a scientific expedition to the Congo, and that his party would follow almost exactly the same route that had been taken by the Stanley Expedition when it set out to look for Emin Pascha.

Benda wrote: “This letter then, my dear friend, is written to say good-bye for a number of years, perhaps forever. I feel as if I had been born anew. I have eyes again; and the ideas that fill my brain are no longer condemned to be stifled in the morass of imprisoned colleagues, loyal and inimical. To labour in nature’s laboratory will make me forget the wrongs I have suffered, the injustice that has been done me. Hunger and thirst, disease and danger will of course have to be endured; they are the effects of those crimes of civilisation that spare the body while they poison the mind and soul.”

Further on Benda wrote: “I am bound to my home by only two people, my mother and you. When I think of you, a feeling of pride comes over me; every hour we spent together is indelibly stamped on my heart. But there is one delicate point: it is a point of conscience. Call it, so far as I am concerned, a chip; call it anything you please. The fact is I have had a Don Quixotic run in, and I have got to defend myself.”

Daniel shook his head and read on. Benda knew nothing of his marriage. He did not even seem to know that Daniel and Gertrude had been engaged. Or if he had known it he had forgotten it. Daniel could hardly believe his own eyes when he came to the following passage: “My greatest anxiety always lay in the fear that you would pass Eleanore by. I was too cowardly to tell you how I felt on this point, and I have reproached myself ever since for my cowardice. Now that I am leaving I tell you how I feel about this matter, though not exactly with the sensation of performing a belated task.”

For Heaven’s sake, thought Daniel, what is he trying to do to me?

“I have often thought about it in quiet hours; it gave me the same feeling of satisfaction that I have in a chemical experiment, when the reactions of the various elements take place as they should: what Eleanore says is your word; what you feel is Eleanore’s law.”

He is seeing ghosts, cried Daniel, he is tangling up the threads of my life. What does he mean? Why does he do it?

“Don’t neglect what I am telling you! Don’t crush that wonderful flower! The girl is a rare specimen; the rarest I know. You need your whole heart with all its powers of love and kindness to appreciate her. But if my words reach you too late, please tear this letter into shreds, and get the whole idea out of your mind as soon and completely as possible.”

“Come, let’s eat,” said Gertrude, as she entered the room with a dish of pickled herring.

Eleanore was sitting on the sofa looking at Daniel quizzically. He was lost in thought.

Daniel looked up, and studied the two women as if they were the figures of a hallucination: the one in dark red, the other in dark blue; minor and major keys. The two stood side by side, and yet so far removed from each other: they were the two poles of his world.

“What has Benda got to say?” asked Gertrude hesitatingly.

“Just think, he is going to Africa,” replied Daniel, with a voice as if he were lying. “Curious, isn’t it? I suppose he is on the ocean by this time.”

With an expression on his face that clearly betrayed the fact that he was afraid the sisters might somehow divine or suspect the parts of the letter he wished to keep to himself, he read as much of it as he dared to them.

“Why don’t you read on?” asked Eleanore, when he paused.

She bent over the table, filled with a burning curiosity to know the whole contents of the letter, and while so doing her hair became entangled in the metal bric-a-brac of the hanging lamp. Gertrude got up and liberated her.

Daniel had laid his hand over the letter, and was looking at Eleanore threateningly. His eye and that of the captured girl chanced to meet; she struggled between a feeling of amusement and one of annoyance. It gave Daniel an uncomfortable feeling to have her eyes so close to his.

“Don’t you know that that is not polite?” he asked. “We have some secrets, probably, Benda and I.”

“I merely thought that Benda had sent me his greetings,” replied Eleanore, and blushed with embarrassment.

Daniel then held the letter above the chimney of the lamp, waited until it had caught fire, and then threw it on the floor, where it burned up.

“It is late, and father is already waiting,” said Eleanore, after they had eaten in great haste.

“I will take you home,” declared Daniel. Surprised by such unusual gallantry, Eleanore looked at him with amazement. He at once became moody; she was still more surprised. “I can go home alone, Daniel,” she said in a tone of noticeable seriousness, “you do not need to put yourself out for me.”

“Put myself out? What do you mean? Are you one of those people who can’t keep a tune, and step on the pedal when their sentiment runs short?”

Eleanore had nothing to say.

“Put your great coat on, Daniel,” said Gertrude in the hall, “it is cold and windy out.”

She wanted to help him on with it, but he threw it in the clothes press; he was irritated.

He walked along at Eleanore’s side through the deserted streets.

She had already put the key in the front door, when she turned around, looked up in a most unhappy way, and said: “Daniel, what in the world is the matter with you? When I look at you, a feeling of anguish and distress comes over me. What have I done that you should act so disagreeably toward me?”