Part 34 (2/2)

Volkschmerz. That was it. And through it all, weaving in and out, one great underlying motif. Indestructibility. The great cry which says, 'We cannot be destroyed!'”

He stood up, uncertainly. His eyes were blazing. He began to walk up and down the luxurious little room. f.a.n.n.y's eyes matched his. She was staring at him, fascinated, trembling.

She moistened her lips a little with her tongue. ”And you've done it?

Teddy! You've done--that!”

Theodore Brandeis stood up, very straight and tall. ”Yes,” he said, simply. ”Yes, I've done that.”

She came over to him then, and put her two hands on his shoulders.

”Ted--dear--will you ever forgive me? I'll try to make up for it now.

I didn't know. I've been blind. Worse than blind. Criminal.” She was weeping now, broken-heartedly, and he was patting her with little comforting love pats, and whispering words of tenderness.

”Forgive you? Forgive you what?”

”The years of suffering. The years you've had to spend with her. With that horrible woman--”

”Don't--” He sucked his breath between his teeth. His face had gone haggard again. f.a.n.n.y, direct as always, made up her mind that she would have it all. And now.

”There's something you haven't told me. Tell me all of it. You're my brother and I'm your sister. We're all we have in the world.” And at that, as though timed by some miraculous and supernatural stage manager, there came a cry from the next room; a sleepy, comfortable, imperious little cry. Mizzi had awakened. f.a.n.n.y made a step in the direction of the door. Then she turned back. ”Tell me why Olga didn't come. Why isn't she here with her husband and baby?”

”Because she's with another man.”

”Another--”

”It had been going on for a long time. I was the last to know about it.

It's that way, always, isn't it? He's an officer. A fool. He'll have to take off his silly corsets now, and his velvet collar, and his s.h.i.+ny boots, and go to war. d.a.m.n him! I hope they'll kill him with a hundred bayonets, one by one, and leave him to rot on the field. She had been fooling me all the time, and they had been laughing at me, the two of them. I didn't find it out until just before this American trip. And when I confronted her with it she laughed in my face. She said she hated me. She said she'd rather starve than leave him to come to America with me. She said I was a fiddling fool. She--” he was trembling and sick with the shame of it--”G.o.d! I can't tell you the things she said.

She wanted to keep Mizzi. Isn't that strange? She loves the baby. She neglects her, and spoils her, and once I saw her beat her, in a rage.

But she says she loves my Mizzi, and I believe she does, in her own dreadful way. I promised her, and lied to her, and then I ran away with Mizzi and her nurse.”

”Oh, I thank G.o.d for that!” f.a.n.n.y cried. ”I thank G.o.d for that! And now, Teddy boy, we'll forget all about those miserable years. We'll forget all about her, and the life she led you. You're going to have your chance here. You're going to be repaid for every minute of suffering you've endured. I'll make it up to you. And when you see them applauding you, calling for you, adoring you, all those hideous years will fade from your mind, and you'll be Theodore Brandeis, the successful, Theodore Brandeis, the gifted, Theodore Brandeis, the great! You need never think of her again. You'll never see her again. That beast! That woman!”

And at that Theodore's face became distorted and dreadful with pain. He raised two impotent, shaking arms high above his head. ”That's just it!

That's just it! You don't know what love is. You don't know what hate is. You don't know how I hate myself. Loathe myself. She's all that's miserable, all that's unspeakable, all that's vile. And if she called me to-day I'd come. That's it.” He covered his shamed face with his two hands, so that the words came from him s...o...b..ringly, sickeningly. ”I hate her! I hate her! And I want her. I want her. I want her!”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

If f.a.n.n.y Brandeis, the deliberately selfish, the calculatingly ambitious, was aghast at the trick fate had played her, she kept her thoughts to herself. Knowing her, I think she must have been grimly amused at finding herself saddled with a helpless baby, a bewildered peasant woman, and an artist brother both helpless and bewildered.

It was out of the question to house them in her small apartment. She found a furnished apartment near her own, and installed them there, with a working housekeeper in charge. She had a gift for management, and she arranged all these details with a brisk capability that swept everything before it. A sunny bedroom for Mizzi. But then, a bright living room, too, for Theodore's hours of practice. No noise. Chicago's roar maddened him. Otti s.h.i.+ed at every new contrivance that met her eye. She had to be broken in to elevators, electric switches, hot and cold faucets, radiators.

”No apartment ever built could cover all the requirements,” f.a.n.n.y confided to Fenger, after the first harrowing week. ”What they really need is a combination palace, houseboat, sanatorium, and creche.”

”Look here,” said Fenger. ”If I can help, why--” a sudden thought struck him. ”Why don't you bring 'em all down to my place in the country? We're not there half the time. It's too cool for my wife in September. Just the thing for the child, and your brother could fiddle his head off.”

The Fengers had a roomy, wide-verandaed house near Lake Forest; one of the many places of its kind that dot the section known as the north sh.o.r.e. Its lawn sloped gently down to the water's edge. The house was gay with striped awnings, and scarlet geraniums, and chintz-covered chairs. The bright, sparkling, luxurious little place seemed to satisfy a certain beauty-sense in Fenger, as did the etchings on the walls in his office. f.a.n.n.y had spent a week-end there in July, with three or four other guests, including Fascinating Facts. She had been charmed with it, and had announced that her energies thereafter would be directed solely toward the possession of just such a house as this, with a lawn that was lipped by the lake, awnings and geraniums to give it a French cafe air; books and magazines enough to belie that.

”And I'll always wear white,” she promised, gayly, ”and there'll be pitchers on every table, frosty on the outside, and minty on the inside, and you're all invited.”

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