Part 19 (2/2)

”I do not understand,” she said, a puzzled look in her eyes. ”How could a child be burned by a fire since it could never approach one. They only have fires in the smelting furnaces, and children could never go near them.”

Despite my bitter mood I smiled as I said: ”It is just a figure of speech that I got out of an old book. It means that when one is hurt by something he does not want to be hurt in the same way again. You remember what you said to me in the cafe about looking up the girl who played the innocent role? I did look her up, and you were right about it. She has been, here three years and has a score of lovers.”

”And you dropped her?”

”Of course I dropped her.”

”And you have not found another?”

”No, and I do not want another, and I had not made love to this girl either, as you think I had; perhaps I would have done so, but thanks to you I was warned in time. I may be even younger than you think I am, young at least in experience with the free women of Berlin. This is the second apartment I have ever been in on this level.”

”Why do you tell me this?” questioned Marguerite.

”Because,” I said doggedly, ”because I suppose that I want you to know that I have spent most of my time in a laboratory. I also want you to know that I do not like the artful deceit that you all seem to cultivate.”

”And do you think I am trying to deceive you?” cried Marguerite reproachfully.

”Your words may be true,” I said, ”but the situation you place me in is a false one. Dr. Zimmern brings me here that I may read your books. He leaves me alone here with you and urges me to come as often as I choose.

All that is hard enough, but to make it harder for me, you tell me that you particularly want my company because you have no other young friends. In fact you practically ask me to make love to you and yet you know why I cannot.”

In the excitement of my warring emotions I had risen and was pacing the floor, and now as I reached the climax of my bitter speech, Marguerite, with a choking sob, fled from the room.

Angered at the situation and humiliated by what I had said, I was on the point of leaving at once. But a moment of reflection caused me to turn back. I had forced a quarrel upon Marguerite and the cause for my anger she perhaps did not comprehend. If I left now it would be impossible to return, and if I did not come back, there would be explanations to make to Zimmern and perhaps an ending of my a.s.sociation with him and his group, which was not only the sole source of my intellectual life outside my work, but which I had begun to hope might lead to some enterprise of moment and possibly to my escape from Berlin.

So calming my anger, I turned to the library and doggedly pulled down a book and began scanning its contents. I had been so occupied for some time, when there was a ring at the bell. I peered out into the reception-room in time to see Marguerite come from another door. Her eyes revealed the fact that she had been crying. Quickly she closed the door of the little library, shutting me in with the books. A moment later she came in with a grey-haired man, a staff officer of the electrical works. She introduced us coolly and then helped the old man find a book he wanted to take out, and which she entered on her records.

After the visitor had gone Marguerite again slipped out of the room and for a time I despaired of a chance to speak to her before I felt I must depart. Another hour pa.s.sed and then she stole into the library and seated herself very quietly on a little dressing chair and watched me as I proceeded with my reading.

I asked her some questions about one of the volumes and she replied with a meek and forgiving voice that made me despise myself heartily. Other questions and answers followed and soon we were talking again of books as if we had no overwhelming sense of the personal presence of each other.

The hours pa.s.sed; by all my sense of propriety I should have been long departed, but still we talked of books without once referring to my heated words of the earlier evening.

She had stood enticingly near me as we pulled down the volumes. My heart beat wildly as she sat by my side, while I mechanically turned the pages. The brush of her garments against my sleeve quite maddened me. I had not dared to look into her eyes, as I talked meaningless, bookish words.

Summoning all my self-control, I now faced her. ”Marguerite,” I said hoa.r.s.ely, ”look at me.”

She lifted her eyes and met my gaze unflinchingly, the moisture of fresh tears gleaming beneath her lashes.

”Forgive me,” I entreated.

”For what?” she asked simply, smiling a little through her tears.

”For being a fool,” I declared fiercely, ”for believing your cordiality toward me as Dr. Zimmern's friend to mean more than--than it should mean.”

”But I do not understand,” she said. ”Should I not have told you that I liked you because you were young? Of course if you don't want me to--to--” She paused abruptly, her face suffused with a delicate crimson.

I stepped toward her and reached out my arms. But she drew back and slipped quickly around the table. ”No,” she cried, ”no, you have said that you did not want me.”

”But I do,” I cried. ”I do want you.”

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