I laughed and kissed her.
"It is no laughing matter," she said, with solemn eyes.
"No," I said, suddenly solemn too, remembering how Agatha Trent died.
And I took her face in both my hands and kissed her again, but with the seriousness of a parting blessing. For all her dignity, she has to reach up to me when I kiss her.
She put my hair tidy with a gentle hand, and said, "You are not at all what a junges Madchen generally is, but you are very nice. Please wish that my child may be a boy, so that I shall become the mother of a soldier."
I kissed her again, and got out of it that way, for I don't wish anything of the sort, and with that we parted.
Meanwhile the Grafin had been sitting very firmly in her carriage, having refused all Frau Bornsted's entreaties to come in. It was wonderful to see how affable she was and yet how firm, and wonderful to see the gulf her affability put between the Bornstedshe was at the gate too, bowingand herself.
And now here I am, and it's past eleven, and my window opens right on to the Haff, and far away across the water I can see the lights of Swinemunde twinkling where the Haff joins the open sea. It is a most beautiful old house, centuries old, and we had a romantic evening,first at supper in a long narrow pannelled room lit by candles, and then on the terrace beneath my window, where larkspurs grow against the low wall along the water's edge. There is nobody here except the Koseritzes, and Herr von Inster, and two girl-friends of Helena's, very pretty and smart-looking, and an old lady who was once the Grafin's governess and comes here every summer to enjoy what she called, speaking English to me, the Summer Fresh.
It was like a dream. The water made lovely little soft noises along the wall of the terrace. It was so still that we could hear the throb of a
steamer far away on the Haff, crossing from Stettin to Swinemunde. The Graf, as usual, said nothing,"He has much to think of," the Grafin whispered to me. The girls talked together in undertones, which would have made me feel shy and out of it if I hadn't somehow not minded a bit, and they did look exactly what the Colonel had said they were, in their pale evening frocks,a nosegay of very delicate and well cared-for hothouse flowers. I had on my evening frock for the first time since I left England, and after the weeks of high blouses felt conspicuously and terribly overdressed up in my bedroom and till I saw the frocks the others had on, and then I felt the exact opposite. Herr von Inster hardly spoke, and not to me at all, but I didn't mind, I had so much in my head that he had talked about this morning. I feel so completely natural with him, so content; and I think it is because he is here at Koseritz that I'm so comfortable, and not in the least shy, as I was that day at luncheon. I simply take things as they come, and don't think about myself at all. When I came down to supper to-night he was waiting in the hall, to show me the way, he said; and he watched me coming down the stairs with that look in his eyes that is such a contrast to the smart, alert efficiency of his figure and manner,it is so gentle, so kind. I went into the room where they all were with a funny feeling of being safe. I don't even know whether Helena stared.
To-morrow the Klosters come over, and are going to stay the night, and to-morrow I may play my fiddle again. I've faithfully kept my promise and not touched it. Really, as it's a quarter to twelve now and at midnight my week's fasting will be over, I might begin and play it quite soon. I wonder what would happen if I sat on my window-sill and played Ravel to the larkspurs and the stars! I believe it would make even the Graf say something. But I won't do anything so unlike, as Frau Bornsted would say, what a junges Madchen generally does, but go to bed instead, into the prettiest bed I've slept in since I had a frilly cot in the nursery,all pink silk coverlet and lace-edged sheets. The room is just like an English country-house bedroom; in fact the Grafin told me she got all her chintzes in London! It's so funny after my room at Frau Berg's, and my little unpainted wooden attic at the Oberforsterei.
Good night, my blessed mother. There are two owls somewhere calling to each other in the forest. Not another sound. Such utter peace.
Your Chris.
Koseritz, Sunday evening, July 19, 1914
I don't know what you'll say, but I'm engaged to Bernd. That's Herr von Inster. You know his name is Bernd? I don't know what to say to it myself. I can't quite believe it. This time last night I was writing to you in this very room, with no thought of anything in the world but just ordinary happiness with kind friends and one specially kind and understanding friend, and here I am twenty-four hours later done with ordinary happiness, taken into my lover's heart for ever.
It was so strange. I don't believe any girl ever got engaged in quite that way before. I'm sure everybody thinks we're insane, except Kloster. Kloster doesn't. He understands.