Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/58

 my keys, it would not do for us to arrive together," I said.

The old couple had taken the middle house of the three small ones which had been built close to the rock by the Elbe. As I went up the many little stone steps leading up from the bank, I saw the party sitting in the summerhouse, the top of which, like the greater part of the whitewashed, timber-built house, was covered by a vine. The afternoon sun was blazing upon it, but over this corner the fruit trees cast a deep shadow, in which the white table-cloth and the shining kettle formed a bright centre to the little company. Minna was busily making the coffee.

We went through the ceremony of introduction with the usual stiffness; but, in offering me a cup of coffee, her half-hidden smile told me that she, as well as I, enjoyed the harmless way in which we had deceived our host and hostess. This slight confidence between us appeared to me, and possibly also to her, of exaggerated importance; it seemed to whisper the promise that we should also be able to keep a greater and sweeter secret than this acquaintanceship from those around us, and the hope that it would be so.

"By the way, you, too, know some Danish. Why not practise now?" Mrs. Hertz said.

I received this surprising news with as much astonishment as, at the moment, I could muster.

Minna told again the tale about the Danish family in which "there had been an idea" of her being the governess. But her gaiety was suddenly mingled with nervousness, and this confirmed my suspicion that she was concealing something. At the same time I guessed that Mrs. Hertz knew the true state of affairs.