Page:H.M. The Patrioteer.djvu/84

76 would be financially dependent upon his mother. For a long time yet he would have no time for anything but business. When Herr Göppel reminded him of the ideal values in life, Diederich repelled him sharply. "Only yesterday I sold my Schiller. My head is screwed on the right way and I can't be fooled." Whenever, after such speeches, he felt the silent reproach of Agnes's glance upon him, he would feel for a moment as if some one else had spoken and he was living in a fog, speaking falsely and acting against his own will. But that feeling passed off.

Whenever he ordered her, Agnes came, and she left whenever it was time for him to go off to work or to drink. She no longer enticed him to day-dreams in front of pictures after he had once stopped in front of a sausage shop, and had declared that this spectacle was for him the highest form of artistic enjoyment. At last it occurred even to him that they saw one another very seldom. He reproached her because she no longer insisted on coming more often. "You used to be quite different." "I must wait," said she. "Wait for what?" "Until you are again like you used to be. Oh, I am quite certain that you will be."

He remained silent for fear of having explanations. Nevertheless, things came about as she had predicted. His work was finally finished and accepted. He had still to pass only an unimportant oral examination, and he was in the exalted frame of mind of one who has passed a turning point. When Agnes came with her congratulations and some roses he burst into tears and vowed that he would love her always and for ever. She announced that Herr Göppel was just starting on a business trip for several days. "And the weather is so perfectly lovely just now. &hellip;" Diederich at once accepted the hint. "We have never had such an opportunity. We must make use of it." They decided to go out into the country. Agnes knew of a place called Mittenwalde; it must be lonely there and as romantic as the name. "We shall be together