Part 15 (1/2)

That was such a delightful joke that they both laughed aloud and Mrs.

Eldred and Frieda were quite in the room before they realized it, and sprang up to greet them with cordiality, if not with the ceremony Hannah had planned for.

Those first days Frieda lived in a busy whirl. Hannah, once at home, and recovered from the excitement of the day in Boston, was ashamed of her conduct on that occasion, and tried to make up for it by all sorts of thoughtful attentions to Frieda, which, with the shade of formality they involved, added a little to the loneliness they were meant to combat.

Mrs. Eldred, giving up, or suspending for a time, the apparently hopeless task of winning Frieda's confidence, attended to her wardrobe with a rapidity and fervor which astonished Frieda, accustomed to long deliberations on such matters, and no reckless buying. Even the pretty frocks and hats and shoes did not please her. She felt loyalty demanded that she should wear the things she had brought from home, and it was not till Mrs. Eldred had given her her mother's letter to read that she consented to lay aside the German garments. Mr. Eldred took her about the city, and thoroughly enjoyed her comments on things American, a scorn thinly veiled by polite phrases, or by an expressive silence.

She was silent most of the time, for the language was her greatest obstacle. She remembered vividly the superior feeling she had had in Berlin, when she had watched Mr. Eldred wrestle with a conditional or had heard Mrs. Eldred struggle to p.r.o.nounce ”ch.” It was not nearly so pleasant to be struggling one's self, with a quite senseless ”th,” for instance. Her heart filled with rage when she caught Hannah listening intently to her carefully enunciated words, and then saying suddenly with relief, ”O!” as their meaning dawned upon her. Frieda had been at the head of her cla.s.s in English.

”It's really because you p.r.o.nounce so very well,” Hannah explained apologetically, on one of these occasions. ”You are so much more exact than we ever think of being, that it gives an unfamiliar sound to words.

And besides, yours is English English and ours is United States.”

”But English English must be best,” protested Frieda, and Hannah forgot Miss Lyndesay's warning and ”flared up” for a minute, but immediately recollected herself, and ordered an ice-cream soda as a peace-offering, notwithstanding the fact that Frieda found the taste disagreeable.

”You'll like it, when you are used to it,” she said comfortingly. ”You don't have them at home, you know.”

”No,” growled Frieda, choking on a spoonful. ”And I'm glad we don't.

Sundaes aren't so bad, but the name is foolis.h.!.+ I do not wonder Miss Lyndesay lives most of the time in Europe!”

The fifth day matters came to a climax. Karl had come over from Cambridge to spend Sunday. Hannah and he seemed to be on the best of terms. They talked English faster than Frieda could understand, and they seemed to have an endless stock of jokes that had no meaning for her.

Suddenly, after sitting with a brow like a thunder-cloud for a while, listening to them and declining to join in the fun, she started up and ran up stairs with a swift pounding gait that recalled to Hannah the way she used to tear madly off to school in the morning, fearful of being late.

Karl and Hannah, left behind, looked solemnly at each other. Karl whistled.

”_Die Kleine_ is irritated about something,” he remarked.

”I don't wonder,” said Hannah sympathizingly. ”I always remember when it's too late to do any differently. She felt left out, I suppose, and you know you do use a terrible amount of slang, nowadays. I'm awfully ashamed of us, Karl!”

Karl pondered a moment. Then he said: ”I'll fix it up all right. Here, you take this note up to Frieda. Just shove it under the door, if she won't let you in.”

He wrote a few lines on a card and gave it to Hannah, who promptly ran away up stairs with it. Then Karl went into the study and telephoned a garage.

In a few minutes, Frieda, shy and somewhat red-eyed, came down stairs.

Hannah was nowhere to be seen, and Mrs. Eldred was out for the afternoon. At the door was a snorting automobile, with seats for just two.

”I knew Hannah would forgive us if we ran away by our two selves,” said Karl in German, meeting Frieda in the hall, and conducting her out to the machine. ”She knows enough about being in a foreign country to understand that sometimes you want to be with your very own people.

There! I'll have this thing running like a charm in about a minute. Sure you're not afraid to go out alone with me? I've learned a good deal about this kind of thing lately. It's one of the courses I'm taking at Harvard. Here we go!” And there they went, speeding down the street at a rate that made a policeman, half asleep on the corner, look about him with a start. Frieda's eyes shone, and she began to feel better.

Karl had evidently acquitted himself well in his course in motoring. He drove skilfully and easily, and they were soon outside the city in a pleasant country road. Almost any place would have seemed pleasant to Frieda just then, though, for Karl was talking cheerily, merrily, talking in German, talking of topics she knew about, and talking exclusively to her. She discovered that the day was much more of a day than she had thought. There was a quality in the air she had not noticed earlier in the afternoon. Presently she even became confidential. Karl, with eyes and hands busy, guiding the machine, bent an attentive ear as Frieda poured out her suppressed irritation of days.

”They think it is such a fine country, Karl. I cannot understand them.

If they had never travelled--but they have been over Europe! They have been in Berlin! And still they find matter for admiration in this dirty little city with its buildings all heights, and its no trees anywhere except in the parks. Where are their beautiful statues? Where is their Victory Avenue? Where are their bridges? _Ach!_ It is a poor cheap country. Tante Edith and Mr. Eldred are heavenly kind, and Hannah I have loved with a great love, but they have very little taste, and no sense at all.”

Karl puckered up his lips in a low whistle, and Frieda blushed.

”I did not mean to say that, Karl,” she said penitently. ”I am their guest. They are heavenly kind, yes. _But_ I do not like the country.”

It was a beautiful shady road they had come into then, and the hills at the end of it showed gracious curves.