It was not long before the community was talking of the change in Hilda, the abrupt change to a gentle, serious, silent woman, the sparkle gone from her eyes, pathos there in its stead. But not even her own family knew her secret.
``When is Mr. Feuerstein coming again?'' asked her father when a week had passed.
``I don't know just when. Soon,'' answered Hilda, in a tone which made it impossible for such a man as he to inquire further.
Sophie brought all her cunning to bear in her effort to get at the facts. But Hilda evaded her hints and avoided her traps.
After much thinking she decided that Mr. Feuerstein had probably gone for good, that Hilda was hoping when there was nothing to hope for, and that her own affairs were suffering from the cessation of action. She was in the mood to entertain the basest suggestions her craft could put forward for making marriage between Hilda and Otto impossible. But she had not yet reached the stage at which overt acts are deliberately planned upon the surface of the mind.
One of her girl friends ran in to gossip with her late in the afternoon of the eighth day after Mr. Feuerstein's ``parting scene'' in Tompkins Square. The talk soon drifted to Hilda, whom the other girl did not like.
``I wonder what's become of that lover of hers--that tall fellow from up town?'' asked Miss Hunneker.
``I don't know,'' replied Sophie in a strained, nervous manner.
``I always hated to see Hilda go with him. No good ever comes of that sort of thing.''
``I supposed she was going to marry him.''
Sophie became very uneasy indeed. ``It don't often turn out that way,'' she said in a voice that was evidently concealing something--apparently an ugly rent in the character of her friend.
Walpurga Hunneker opened her eyes wide. ``You don't mean--'' she exclaimed. And, as Sophie looked still more confused, ``Well, I THOUGHT so! Gracious! Her pride must have had a fall.
No wonder she looks so disturbed.''
``Poor Hilda!'' said Sophie mournfully. Then she looked at Walpurga in a frightened way as if she had been betrayed into saying too much.
Walpurga spent a busy evening among her confidantes, with the result that the next day the neighborhood was agitated by gossip--insinuations that grew bolder and bolder, that had sprung from nowhere, but pointed to Hilda's sad face as proof of their truth. And on the third day they had reached Otto's mother. Not a detail was lacking--even the scene between Hilda and her father was one of the several startling climaxes of the tale. Mrs.
Heilig had been bitterly resentful of Hilda's treatment of her son, and she accepted the story--it was in such perfect harmony with her expectations from the moment she heard of Mr. Feuerstein. In the evening, when he came home from the shop, she told him.
``There isn't a word of truth in it, mother,'' he said. ``I don't care who told you, it's a lie.''
``Your love makes you blind,'' answered the mother. ``But I can see that her vanity has led her just where vanity always leads --to destruction.''
``Who told you?'' he demanded.
Mrs. Heilig gave him the names of several women. ``It is known to all,'' she said.
His impulse was to rush out and trace down the lie to its author.
But he soon realized the folly of such an attempt. He would only aggravate the gossip and the scandal, give the scandal-mongers a new chapter for their story. Yet he could not rest without doing something.
He went to Hilda--she had been most friendly toward him since the day he helped her with her lover. He asked her to walk with him in the Square. When they were alone, he began: ``Hilda, you believe I'm your friend, don't you?''
She looked as if she feared he were about to reopen the old subject.
``No--I'm not going to worry you,'' he said in answer to the look. ``I mean just friend.''
``I know you are, Otto,'' she replied with tears in her eyes.
``You are indeed my friend. I've counted on you ever since you--ever since that Sunday.''
``Then you won't think wrong of me if I ask you a question?
You'll know I wouldn't, if I didn't have a good reason, even though I can't explain?''
``Yes--what is it?''
``Hilda, is--is Mr. Feuerstein coming back?''
Hilda flushed. ``Yes, Otto,'' she said. ``I haven't spoken to any one about it, but I can trust you. He's had trouble and it has called him away. But he told me he'd come back.'' She looked at him appealingly. ``You know that I love him, Otto.
Some day you will like him, will see what a noble man he is.''
``When is he coming back?''
``I didn't ask him. I knew he'd come as soon as he could. I wouldn't pry into his affairs.''
``Then you don't know why he went or when he's coming?''
``I trust him, just as you'll want a girl to trust you some day when you love her.''
As soon as he could leave her, he went up town, straight to the German Theater. In the box-office sat a young man with hair precisely parted in the middle and sleeked down in two whirls brought low on his forehead.
``I'd like to get Mr. Feuerstein's address,'' said Otto.
``That dead-beat?'' the young man replied contemptuously. ``I suppose he got into you like he did into every one else. Yes, you can have his address. And give him one for me when you catch him. He did me out of ten dollars.''
Otto went on to the boarding-house in East Sixteenth Street. No, Mr. Feuerstein was not in and it was not known when he would return--he was very uncertain. Otto went to Stuyvesant Square and seated himself where he could see the stoop of the boarding-house. An hour, two hours, two hours and a half passed, and then his patient attitude changed abruptly to action. He saw the soft light hat and the yellow bush coming toward him. Mr. Feuerstein paled slightly as he recognized Otto.
``I'm not going to hurt you,'' said Otto in a tone which Mr. Feuerstein wished he had the physical strength to punish. ``Sit down here--I've got something to say to you.''
``I'm in a great hurry. Really, you'll have to come again.''
But Otto's look won. Mr. Feuerstein hesitated, seated himself.
