Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/123

 that trip with us. There is a train back at nine o'clock. Minna has already promised to come."

Of course I hastened to do the same.

My fertile, self-tortured brain had for a minute whispered to me the possibility that my letter had not been delivered, and that Minna's presence was without meaning, and that everything might still end in disappointment. But Mr. Hertz's remark that Minna had insisted that I was sure to come calmed me.

She herself now came up the steps, dressed in the same light chamois-coloured frock which she had worn during our expedition to the quarry. In giving me an unusually long and firm shake of the hand—her way of shaking hands was individual and sincere—she smiled, but only with her eyes, that looked straight into my soul, with a glance as different from all former ones as "my love" is from "my friend." All the blood flew to my head; and when she let go my hand, it trembled, and my knees shook. Now, for the first time, when I had certainty and felt quite calm and happy, I could physically feel how much the dreadful strain and fear had affected me.

Minna had felt it, and could not help smiling secretly with a rather flattered air, while she poured out the glass of cold-well water for Mr. Hertz, which he always appreciated so much with his coffee it was just as if we were in a café. And while he was sipping first the coffee and then the water, he talked in his excited way—

"For you must know, yes, it is sure to interest you, perhaps it will tempt you to follow us to Prague. Well, you will not? But indeed it is better so, for then Minna will have company on her return, and to you we dare trust her. Well, in Prague a manuscript has been found of Faust,, my dear boy, that is to say, a part of the first scenes—which differs, of course, only in details,