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Just then Rieke came in and began to clear off the table. She went about her business in a slow but noisy fashion. She made things rattle, even if she could not make them hum. When she was through, Jason Philip, his hands pressed to his hips, his elbows protruding, planted himself before Theresa.
He repeated his visit. One afternoon he went upstairs, to look for Rieke. She was sewing a seam. Theodore asked her whether he was in her way. "Not at all," she replied, "on the contrary." They talked of his brother who was away at camp, and would be away for another two months. Presently he ordered some punch and their intimacy grew. On another occasion Theodore met her in the Park.
It was dawn when he reached his own bed-room, alone, annihilated, robbed of his faith in life, in love, and, of course, in women, for to him there was but one woman in the world, and that was Rieke from "The Equerry." On the fifteenth of September he went to Upsala to study theology. The years passed.
The lieutenant drank to each one of them separately; Theodore found that everything was as it should be and finally became so bold that he kissed Rieke on the shoulder. But she looked annoyed and drew away from him, and he felt ashamed. When Theodore found himself alone in his room, he had a feeling as if the whole world were turned upside down.
Then he felt ashamed of having harboured base thoughts of so innocent a girl, and finally his passion was transformed into admiration for this poor little thing, who had managed to keep herself unspotted in the midst of temptation. He had given up the idea of going into the Church; he determined to take the doctor's degree and who knows perhaps marry Rieke.
"You are playing from the Freischutz, aren't you?" she asked. "No," said Theodore, politely, "I'm playing Gounod's Faust." "Your brother looks frightfully respectable," said the little dark one, whose name was Rieke; "he's different to you, you old villain." "Oh! well, he's going into the Church," whispered the lieutenant.
He went out for a walk and suddenly found himself in the country. The thought struck him that he might go to the restaurant and look up the girls. He went into the large room; there he found Rieke and Jossa alone, in morning dresses, snubbing gooseberries. Before he knew what he was doing, he was sitting at the table beside them with a pair of scissors in his hand, helping them.
He did not know how long he had been playing, but when he turned, round he saw his brother entering the room. He looked like a god, radiating life and strength. Behind him came Rieke with a bowl of punch, and immediately after all the girls came upstairs.
Rieke, the maid, became so alarmed at her behaviour that she made the sign of the cross. When the midday meal was over, the children left the table and prepared to go to school. Jason Philip lighted a cigar, and took the newspaper from his pocket. “Did you find anything for the second-hand furniture man?” he asked, as he puffed away. “I found something for him and something for myself,” she said.
Theresa greeted her sister with apparent friendliness, but she did not leave her place. She stretched out her hand across the ink-stand, and observed Marian’s shabby appearance—the worn shawl, the old-fashioned little cloth bonnet with its black velvet ribbands meeting in a bow under the chin. “Go upstairs for a bit,” she said, “and let the children entertain you. Rieke will bring up your bag.”
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