Dividing Waters. I. A. R. Wylie
are a harsh judge, Wolff," he said. "As far as I know, Bauer is a harmless fellow enough. It is true that he swaggers a good deal with his money and is rather pushing in circles where he is not wanted, but for the rest—I have heard nothing to his discredit."
"That may be," was the quick answer. "There are dishonourable men who act honourably out of caution, and honourable men who act dishonourably out of rashness. I do not want to be unjust, but I cannot help putting Bauer in the former category. My instinct warns me against him—and not only my instinct. A man who talks about duty as a drudgery and is content to get through life without success and with as little effort as possible is a useless drone. In our calling he is worse than that—a parasite."
Seleneck sighed.
"Oh, you ambitious, successful fellows!" he said with a lugubrious tug at his moustache. "You talk as scornfully of 'getting through life without success' as though it were a crime. Look at me—grey hairs already, a family man, and still nothing more than a blundering old captain, who will be thankful it he is allowed at the end to retire with a major's pension. I am one of your drones—a parasite, if you like, and certainly a failure, but Heaven knows it is not my wish."
"You are no more a failure than the best of us," Wolff von Arnim answered vigorously. "I know you, alter Kerl, and I know you have given your best strength, your best thought to your calling; I know 'duty' is the Alpha and Omega of your life—no one could ask more of you."
"I have done my best," was the simple answer. "It hasn't come to much, but still, it was my best. You, Wolff, will go much farther."
They were passing under the light of a street lamp as he spoke, and Arnim glanced at his companion's face. There was perhaps something written on the plain yet honest and soldierly features which touched him, for his own relaxed, and the softened expression made him seem almost boyish.
"If I do my duty as well as you have done, I shall be very proud," he said earnestly.
They walked on in silence, each absorbed in his own thoughts, and then Seleneck came to a standstill.
"Our ways end here," he said. "I suppose you are going to Frau von Arnim's?"
"Yes; I must let her know my good luck. She will be very glad."
"And the little cousin—will she be 'very glad'?"
Arnim met the quizzical not unkindly glance with an almost imperceptible change of countenance.
"I suppose so. Why shouldn't she?"
"She will miss you."
Arnim did not answer, nor did he show any sign of continuing on his way. He seemed suddenly caught in a painful train of thought, from which his companion made no effort to arouse him.
"Poor little soul!" he said at last, half to himself. "It is terribly hard luck on her. No one loved life as she did, and now"—his brows contracted—"sometimes I feel as though I were to blame," he added abruptly.
"What nonsense!" Seleneck retorted. "Are you responsible because a horse shies and a girl has the misfortune to be thrown?"
"Perhaps not; but the feeling of responsibility is not so easily shaken off. I never see her—or her mother—without cursing the impulse that made me take her out that day."
"It might just as well have happened any other day and with any one else," Seleneck retorted cold-bloodedly.
"Of course. Only one cannot reason like that with one's conscience. At any rate, there is nothing I would not do to make her happy—to atone to her. Besides," he added hastily, as though he had said something he regretted, "I am very fond of her."
The elder man tapped him on the shoulder.
"Alter Junge," he said pointedly, "I can trust your career to your brains, but I am not so sure that I can trust your life to your heart. Take care that you do not end up as Field-Marshal with Disappointment as your adjutant. Lebewohl."
With an abrupt salute he turned and strode off into the gathering twilight, leaving Arnim to put what interpretation he chose to the warning. That the warning had not been without effect was clear. Arnim went up the steps of the square-built house with a slowness that suggested reluctance, and the features beneath the dark-blue cap, hitherto alight with energy and enthusiasm, had suddenly become graver and older.
He found Frau von Arnim in her private sitting-room, writing letters. She turned with a pleased smile as he entered, and held out a hand which he kissed affectionately. The bond between them was indeed an unusually close one, and dated from Wolff's first boyhood, when as a pathetically small cadet he had wept long-controlled and bitter tears on her kind shoulder and confided to her all the wrongs with which his elder comrades darkened his life. From that time he had been a constant Sunday guest at her table, had been Hildegarde's playfellow throughout the long Sunday afternoons, and had returned to the grim Cadettenhaus at nightfall laden with contraband of the sort dearest to a boy's heart. Afterwards, as ensign and young lieutenant, he had still looked up to her with the old confidence, and to this very hour there had been no passage in his life, wise or foolish, of which she was not cognisant. She had been mother, father, and comrade to him, and it was more by instinct than from any sense of duty that he had come to her first with his good news.
"I have been appointed to the Staff in Berlin," he said. "The order arrived this afternoon. It's all a step in the right direction, isn't it? At any rate, I shall be out of the routine and able to do head-work to my heart's—I mean head's content."
Frau von Arnim laughed and pressed the strong hand which still held hers.
"It is splendid, Wolff," she said. "I knew that the day would come when we should be proud of unsren Junge. Who knows? Perhaps as an old, old woman I shall be able to hobble along on a stately General's arm—that is, of course, if he will be seen with such an old wreck. But"—her face overshadowed somewhat—"when shall we have to part with you?"
"Not for some months," he said, seating himself beside her, "and then I think you had better pack up your goods and chattels and come too. I shall never be able to exist without you to keep me in order and Hildegarde to cheer me up."
"I have never noticed that you wanted much keeping in order," Frau von Arnim said with a grave smile. "And as for the other matter, it is to you that Hildegarde owes much of her cheeriness. She will miss you terribly."
A silence fell between them which neither noticed, though it lasted some minutes. Overhead some one began to play the "Liebeslied" from the Walküre.
Wolff looked up and found that his aunt's eyes were fixed on him.
"Hildegarde?" he asked, and for the first time he felt conscious of a lack of candour.
Frau von Arnim shook her head.
"Poor Hildegarde never plays," she reminded him gently. "It is Nora—Miss Ingestre. You remember her?"
"Yes," he said slowly. "She is not easily forgotten." After a moment's hesitation he added, "I never knew English people could be so charming. Those I have met on my travels have either been badly mannered boors or arrogant pokers. Miss Ingestre is either an exception or a revelation."
The room was in part darkness, as Frau von Arnim loved it best. A small lamp burned on her table, and by its light she could study his face unobserved.
"She has won all hearts—even to the coachman, who has a prejudice against foreigners," she said in a lighter tone, "and Hildegarde has become another person since her arrival. I do not know what we should do without her. When she first came she was, of course, baked in her insular prejudices, but she is so open-minded and broad-hearted that they have fallen away almost miraculously. We have not had to suffer—as is so often the case—from volleys of Anglo-Saxon criticisms."
"She seems musical, too," Wolff said, who was still listening with close attention to the unseen player.
"She is musical; so much so that I am having her properly trained at the Conservatorium," his aunt answered with enthusiasm. "When she has got out of