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One Sunday, however, on their way home, they met a drunken farm-hand, also on a wheel. Höflinger saw from a distance that the man took up the whole width of the road and could not control his machine. He gave a warning blast of his horn. Spiele tinkled merrily. Victor also tooted a warning. All three kept to the right. For a moment it seemed as if an accident could be avoided.
J. Darmesteter, in Récéjac, Essai sur les fondements de la connaissance mystique, p. 124. In such notions may perhaps be best found the genesis of the present superstitions in regard to "lucky" and "unlucky" numbers, like the number 13, which have such persistence. See Part Two, chapter II. Groos, Die Spiele der Thiere, pp. 308-312. Mabilleau, op. cit., p. 132.
Unwillingly he followed Höflinger into the third factory court where Spiele stood beside her wheel. Höflinger had invented a special arrangement for fastening the lunch-basket to the wheel.
Spiele, too, it seemed to him, was going more and more out of herself in her husband's presence. She seemed to enjoy their leavetaking. She began to sing all sorts of taunting little tunes that she remembered from her girlhood, innocent jolly songs with which the daughters of the middle class while away their time and keep awake their minds in their long wait for a husband.
In the distance floated and beckoned the future of Spiele: that was the prize. His imagination painted glowing pictures of her life and of her heaven. His love became distorted like a cloud image and the adored form of his sweetheart went under in the wild conflagration. He hoped to see an angel rise from the flames; but at best it was a charred corpse that awaited him.
The window was open and his voice floated over the moonlit gardens; Du liebes Kind, komm' geh mit mir! Gar schoene Spiele spiel' ich mit dir. Suddenly it seemed to Glory that two women sprang into life in her one who loved John Storm and wished to live and work beside him, the other who loved the world and felt that she could never give it up.
On account of his long legs Höflinger sat rather high; it was quite a distance from his saddle to the button on his cap. Spiele sat two heads lower. Her legs were not long; she reached up only to her husband's shoulders. Victor was the last, bent double over his wheel as though he had cramps.
In those days Spiele was again fighting her husband. She complained that he was not proposing to give her a discount at the future consumers' store and asked Victor whether he, too, would let her come off so badly in the big scheme. Then there was some talk about their leaving the cottage with the garden and moving into the workingmen's colony.
With the same quiet and impersonally gentle manner in which he had taken leave of the idol, Victor approached Spiele, when he returned with Höflinger. He noticed now with his unveiled eyes that the tailor's daughter was by no means as pretty as he had always believed. There were wrinkles about her nose from her habit of drawing it up so often. She also had some crowsfeet about the eyes.
"Think of it, Spiele, Pratteler did not want to leave us. I believe he had some scruples about leaving you alone with me." Spiele turned over a baby garment which she was sewing. "Well, it is not always a pleasure to be alone with you!" she replied with a laugh. "But I am going to try it once more."
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