Part 14 (1/2)

”What a funny book!” exclaimed Bertha, as she gazed at the round maps of the two hemispheres. ”Of what is that a picture?”

”The world,” I answered.

She stared at me blankly. ”The Royal World?” she asked.

”No, no,” I replied. ”The world outside the walls of Berlin.”

”The world in the sun,” exclaimed Bertha, ”on the roof where they fight the airplanes? A roof-guard officer” she paused and bit her lip--

”The world of the inferior races,” I suggested, trying to find some common footing with her pitifully scant knowledge.

”The world underground,” she said, ”where the soldiers fight in the mines?”

Baffled in my efforts to define this world to her, I began turning the pages of the geography, while Bertha looked at the pictures in child-like wonder, and I tried as best I could to find simple explanations.

Between the lines of my teaching, I scanned, as it were, the true state of German ignorance. Despite the evident intended authoritativeness of the book--for it was marked ”Permitted to military staff officers”--I found it amusingly full of erroneous conceptions of the true state of affairs in the outer world.

This teaching of a child-like mind the rudiments of knowledge was an amusing recreation, and so an hour pa.s.sed pleasantly. Yet I realized that this was an occupation of which I would soon tire, for it was not the amus.e.m.e.nt of teaching a child that I craved, but the companions.h.i.+p of a woman of intelligence.

As we turned the last page I arose to take my departure. ”If I leave the book with you,” I said, ”will you read it all, very carefully? And then when I come again I will explain those things you can not understand.”

”But it is so big, I couldn't read it in a day,” replied Bertha, as she looked at me appealingly.

I steeled myself against that appeal. I wanted very much to get my mind back on my chemistry, and I wanted also to give her time to read and ponder over the wonders of the great unknown world. Moreover, I no longer felt so grievously concerned, for the calamity which had overshadowed her had been for the while removed. And I had, too, my own struggle to cherish her innocence, and that without the usual help extended by conventional society. So I made brave resolutions and explained the urgency of my work and insisted that I could not see her for five days.

Hungrily she pleaded for a quicker return; and I stubbornly resisted the temptation. ”No,” I insisted, ”not tomorrow, nor the next day, but I will come back in three days at the same hour that I came tonight.”

Then taking her in my arms, I kissed her in feverish haste and tore myself from the enthralling lure of her presence.

~5~

When I reached the cafe the following evening to keep my appointment with Zimmern, the waiter directed me to one of the small enclosed booths. As I entered, closing the door after me, I found myself confronting a young woman.

”Are you Col. Armstadt?” she asked with a clear, vibrant voice. She smiled cordially as she gave me her hand. ”I am Marguerite. Dr. Zimmern has gone to bring Col. h.e.l.lar, and he asked me to entertain you until his return.”

The friendly candour of this greeting swept away the grey walls of Berlin, and I seemed again face to face with a woman of my own people.

She was a young woman of distinctive personality. Her features, though delicately moulded, bespoke intelligence and strength of character that I had not hitherto seen in the women of Berlin. Framing her face was a luxuriant ma.s.s of wavy brown hair, which fell loosely about her shoulders. Her slender figure was draped in a cape of deep blue cellulose velvet.

”Dr. Zimmern tells me,” I said as I seated myself across the table from her, ”that you are a dear friend of his.”

A swift light gleamed in her deep brown eyes. ”A very dear friend,” she said feelingly, and then a shadow flitted across her face as she added, ”Without him life for me would be unbearable here.”

”And how long, if I may ask, have you been here?”

”About four years. Four years and six days, to be exact. I can keep count you know,” and she smiled whimsically, ”for I came on the day of my birth, the day I was sixteen.”

”That is the same for all, is it not?”

”No one can come here before she is sixteen,” replied Marguerite, ”and all must come before they are eighteen.”