V
They found the fire burning brightly in their room. The only other person in the pretty, stiffly-furnished cottage was their landlady, a charming old lady who let this sitting-room more for the change, for the sake of having visitors, than for gain.
Helena introduced Siegmund as “My friend.” The old lady smiled upon him. He was big, and good-looking, and embarrassed. She had had a son years back…. And the two were lovers. She hoped they would come to her house for their honeymoon.
Siegmund sat in his great horse-hair chair by the fire, while Helena attended to the lamp. Glancing at him over the glowing globe, she found him watching her with a small, peculiar smile of irony, and anger, and bewilderment. He was not quite himself. Her hand trembled so, she could scarcely adjust the wicks.
Helena left the room to change her dress.
“I shall be back before Mrs. Curtiss brings in the tray. There is the Nietzsche I brought——”
He did not answer as he watched her go. Left alone, he sat with his arms along his knees, perfectly still. His heart beat heavily, and all his being felt sullen, watchful, aloof, like a balked animal. Thoughts came up in his brain like bubbles—random, hissing out
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