have been something between you and him— Oh, well, we'll say no more about it," he concluded, as she drew herself up, dumbfounded with horror. He tried to make things right again, saying he was still completely mastered by his joy.
She dressed herself very slowly. "Your father will not know at all what has happened to you," said Diederich. She merely shrugged her shoulders. When she was ready, and he had opened the door, she stood for a moment and looked back into the room with a long glance, full of fear.
"Perhaps," she said, as if talking to herself, "I shall never see this room again. I feel as if I were going to die to-night."
"Why do you say that?" asked Diederich aggrievedly. Instead of replying she clung to him again, her lips pressed to his, their two bodies so closely held together that they seemed but one. Diederich waited patiently. She broke away from him, opened her eyes and said: "You must not think that I expect anything from you. I love you and that is enough."
He offered to call a cab for her, but she preferred to walk. On the way he inquired after her family and other acquaintances. But by the time they had reached the Belle Alliance Platz he began to feel uneasy, and in rather muffled tones he said: "Of course you must not think that I want to evade my responsibility to you. But, you understand, for the moment I am not earning anything, and I must get fixed up and get into harness at the factory.…"
Agnes answered quietly and gratefully, as if a favour had been conferred upon her: "How nice it would be if I could become your wife later on."
When they turned into Blucherstrasse he stopped. Hesitatingly he suggested it would probably be better if he turned back.
"Because some one might see us? That wouldn't matter at all, for I must explain at home that I met you and that we waited together in a cafe till the streets were clear."
