Richard Vandermarck Part 11

"O yes! I shall need at least as much grace as that."

"Then say this after me: 'ICH WILL ALLES LERNEN, WAS SIE MICH LEHREN.' Begin. 'ICH WILL ALLES LERNEN'--"

"'ICH WILL ALLES LERNEN'--but what does it mean?"

"Oh, that is not important. Learn it first. Can you not trust me? 'ICH WILL ALLES LERNEN, WAS SIE MICH LEHREN.'"

"'ICH WILL ALLES LERNEN'--ah, you look as if my p.r.o.nunciation were not good."

"I was not thinking of that; you p.r.o.nounce very well. 'ICH WILL ALLES LERNEN--'"

"ICH WILL ALLES LERNEN, WAS SIE MICH LEHREN:--there _now_, tell me what it means."

"Not until you learn it; _encore une fois_."

I said it after him again and again, but when I attempted it alone, I made invariably some error.

"Let me write it for you," he said, and pulling a book from his pocket, tore out a leaf and wrote the sentence on it. "There--keep the paper and study it, and say it to me in the morning."

I have the paper still; long years have pa.s.sed: it is only a crumpled little yellow fragment; but the world would be poorer and emptier to me if it were destroyed.

I had quite mastered the sentence, saying it after him word for word, and held the slip of paper in my hand, when I heard steps in the hall. I knew Richard's step very well, and gave a little start. Mr. Langenau frowned, and his manner changed, as I half rose from my seat, and as quickly sank back in it again.

"Is it that you lack courage?" he said, looking at me keenly.

"I don't know what I lack," I cried, bending down my head to hide my flushed face; "but I hate to be scolded and have scenes."

"But who has a right to scold you and to make a scene?"

"n.o.body: only everybody does it all the same."

"Everybody, I suppose, means Mr. Richard Vandermarck, who is frowning at you this moment from the hall."

"And it means you--who are frowning at me this moment from your seat."

All this time Richard had been standing in the hall; but now he walked slowly away. I felt sure he had given me up. The people began to come out of the parlor, and I felt ready to cry with vexation, when I thought that they would again be talking about me. It was true, I am afraid, that I lacked courage.

"You want me to go away?" he said, fixing his eyes intently on me.

"O yes, if you only would," I said navely.

He looked so white and angry when he rose, that I sprang up and put out my hand to stop him, and said hurriedly, "I only meant--that is--I should think you would understand without my telling you. A woman cannot bear to have people talk about her, and know who she likes and who she doesn't. It kills me to have people talk about me. I'm not used to society--I don't know what is right--but I don't think--I am afraid--I ought not to have stayed in here and talked to you away from all the others. It's that that makes me so uncomfortable. That, and Richard too.

For I know he doesn't like to have me pleased with any one. Do not go away angry with me. I don't see why you do not understand."

My incoherent little speech had brought him to his senses.

"I am not going away angry," he said in a low voice, "I will promise not to speak to you again to-night. Only remember that I have feelings as well as Mr. Richard Vandermarck."

In a moment more I was alone. Richard did not come near me, nor seem to notice me, as he pa.s.sed through the hall. Presently Mr. Eugene Whitney came in, and I was very glad to see him.

"Won't you take me to walk on the piazza?" I asked, for everybody else was walking there. He was only too happy; and so the evening ended commonplace enough.

CHAPTER X.

EVERY DAY FROM SIX TO SEVEN.

She wanted years to understand The grief that he did feel.

_Surrey_.

Love is not love That alters where it alteration finds.

This was how the German cla.s.s was formed.

The next day, as we were leaving the dinner-table, Mr. Langenau paused a few moments by Sophie, in the hall, and talked with her about the boys.

"Charley gets on very well with his German," he observed, "but Benny doesn't make much progress. He is too young to study much, and acquires chiefly by the ear. If you only had a German maid, or if you could speak with him yourself, he would make much better progress."

"Yes, I wish I had more knowledge of the language," she replied; "I read it very easily, but cannot speak with any fluency."

"Why will you never speak it with me?" he said. "And if you will permit me, I shall be very glad to read with you an hour a day. I have much leisure, and it would be no task to me."

"I should like it very much, and you are very kind. But it is so hard to find an hour unoccupied, particularly with so many people in the house, whom I ought to entertain."

"That is very true, unless you can make it a source of entertainment to them. Miss Benson--is she not a German scholar? She might like to join you."

Then, I think, the clever Sophie's mind was illuminated, and the tutor's little scheme was revealed to her clear eye; she embraced it with effusion. "An admirable idea," she said, "and the others, too, perhaps, would join us if you would not mind. It would be one hour a day at least secure from _ennui:_ I shall have great cause to thank you, if we can arrange it. For these girls get so tired of doing nothing; my mind is always on the strain to think of an amus.e.m.e.nt. Charlotte! Come here, I want to ask you something."

Charlotte Benson came, and with her came Henrietta. I was sitting on the sofa between the parlor-doors, and could not help hearing the whole conversation, as they were standing immediately before me.

"Mr. Langenau proposes to us to read an hour a day with him in German.

What do you think about it?"

"Charming," said Charlotte with enthusiasm. "I cannot think of anything that would give me greater pleasure. Henrietta and I have read in German together for two winters, and it will be enchanting to continue it with such a master as Mr. Langenau."

Henrietta murmured her satisfaction, and then Charlotte rushed into plans for the course, leaving me in despair, supposing I had been forgotten. What place I was to find in such advanced society I could not well imagine.

Mr. Langenau never turned his head in my direction, and talked with Miss Benson with so much earnestness about the books into which they were to plunge, that I could not convince myself that all this was undertaken solely that he might teach me German. In a little while they seemed to have settled it all to their satisfaction, and he had turned to go away.

My heart was in my throat. Mrs. Hollenbeck had not forgotten me. She said something low to Mr. Langenau.

"Ah, true!" he said. "But does she know anything of German?" Then turning to me he said, with one of his dazzling sudden glances, "Miss d'Estree, we are talking of making up a German cla.s.s; do you understand the language?"

"No," I said, meeting his eye for a moment, "I have only taken one lesson in my life," and then blushed scarlet at my own audacity.

"Ah," said he, as if quite sorry for the disappointment, "I wish you were advanced enough to join us."