The First Violin. Fothergill Jessie

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СКАЧАТЬ a slight smile began to dawn upon his lips. Not an Englishman. I should have known him for an outlander anywhere. I remarked no details of his appearance; only that he was tall and had, as it seemed to me, a commanding bearing. I stood hesitating and blushing. (To this very day the blood comes to my face as I think of my agony of blushes in that immemorial moment.) I saw a handsome – a very handsome face, quite different from any I had ever seen before: the startling eyes before spoken of, and which surveyed me with a look so keen, so cool, and so bright, which seemed to penetrate through and through me; while a slight smile curled the light mustache upward – a general aspect which gave me the impression that he was not only a personage, but a very great personage – with a flavor of something else permeating it all which puzzled me and made me feel embarrassed as to how to address him. While I stood inanely trying to gather my senses together, he took off the little cloth cap he wore, and bowing, asked:

      “Mein Fräulein, in what can I assist you?”

      His English was excellent – his bow like nothing I had seen before. Convinced that I had met a genuine, thorough fine gentleman (in which I was right for once in my life), I began:

      “I have lost my way,” and my voice trembled in spite of all my efforts to steady it. “In a crowd I lost my friends, and – I was going to Elberthal, and I turned the wrong way – and – ”

      “Have come to destruction, nicht wahr?” He looked at his watch, raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders. “The Elberthal train is already away.”

      “Gone!” I dropped my rugs and began a tremulous search for my pocket-handkerchief. “What shall I do?”

      “There is another – let me see – in one hour – two —will ’mal nachsehen. Will you come with me, Fräulein, and we will see about the trains.”

      “If you would show me the platform,” said I. “Perhaps some of them may still be there. Oh, what will they think of me?”

      “We must go to the wartesaal,” said he. “Then you can look out and see if you see any of them.”

      I had no choice but to comply.

      My benefactor picked up my two bundles, and, in spite of my expostulations, carried them with him. He took me through the door inscribed Ausgang, and the whole thing seemed so extremely simple now, that my astonishment as to how I could have lost myself increased every minute. He went before me to the waiting-room, put my bundles upon one of the sofas, and we went to the door. The platform was almost as empty as the one we had left.

      I looked round, and though it was only what I had expected, yet my face fell when I saw how utterly and entirely my party had disappeared.

      “You see them not?” he inquired.

      “No – they are gone,” said I, turning away from the window and choking down a sob, not very effectually. Turning my damp and sorrowful eyes to my companion, I found that he was still smiling to himself as if quietly amused at the whole adventure.

      “I will go and see at what time the trains go to Elberthal. Suppose you sit down – yes?”

      Passively obeying, I sat down and turned my situation over in my mind, in which kind of agreeable mental legerdemain I was still occupied when he returned.

      “It is now half past three, and there is a train to Elberthal at seven.”

      “Seven!”

      “Seven: a very pleasant time to travel, nicht wahr? Then it is still quite light.”

      “So long! Three hours and a half,” I murmured, dejectedly, and bit my lips and hung my head. Then I said, “I am sure I am much obliged to you. If I might ask you a favor?”

      “Bitte, mein Fräulein!”

      “If you could show me exactly where the train starts from, and – could I get a ticket now, do you think?”

      “I’m afraid not, so long before,” he answered, twisting his mustache, as I could not help seeing, to hide a smile.

      “Then,” said I, with stoic calmness, “I shall never get to Elberthal – never, for I don’t know a word of German, not one,” I sat more firmly down upon the sofa, and tried to contemplate the future with fortitude.

      “I can tell you what to say,” said he, removing with great deliberation the bundles which divided us, and sitting down beside me. He leaned his chin upon his hand and looked at me, ever, as it seemed to me, with amusement tempered with kindness, and I felt like a very little girl indeed.

      “You are exceedingly good,” I replied, “but it would be of no use. I am so frightened of those men in blue coats and big mustaches. I should not be able to say a word to any of them.”

      “German is sometimes not unlike English.”

      “It is like nothing to me, except a great mystery.”

      “Billet, is ‘ticket,’” said he persuasively.

      “Oh, is it?” said I, with a gleam of hope. “Perhaps I could remember that. Billet,” I repeated reflectively.

      “Billet,” he amended; “not Billit.”

      “Bill-yet – Bill-yet,” I repeated.

      “And ‘to Elberthal’ may be said in one word, ‘Elberthal.’ ‘Ein Billet – Elberthal – erster Classe.’”

      “Ein Bill-yet,” I repeated, automatically, for my thoughts were dwelling more upon the charming quandary in which I found myself than upon his half-good-natured half-mocking instructions: “Ein Bill-yet, firste – erste– it is of no use. I can’t say it. But” – here a brilliant idea struck me – “if you could write it out for me on a paper, and then I could give it to the man: he would surely know what it meant.”

      “A very interesting idea, but a vivâ voce interview is so much better.”

      “I wonder how long it takes to walk to Elberthal!” I suggested darkly.

      “Oh, a mere trifle of a walk. You might do it in four or five hours, I dare say.”

      I bit my lips, trying not to cry.

      “Perhaps we might make some other arrangement,” he remarked. “I am going to Elberthal too.”

      “You! Thank Heaven!” was my first remark. Then as a doubt came over me: “Then why – why – ”

      Here I stuck fast, unable to ask why he had said so many tormenting things to me, pretended to teach me German phrases, and so on. The words would not come out. Meanwhile he, without apparently feeling it necessary to explain himself upon these points, went on:

      “Yes. I have been at a probe” (not having the faintest idea as to what a probe might be, and not liking to ask, I held my peace and bowed assentingly). He went on, “And I was delayed a little. I had intended to go by the train you have lost, so if you are not afraid to trust yourself to my care we can travel together.”

      “You – you are very kind.”

      “Then you are not afraid?”

      “I – oh, no! СКАЧАТЬ