"Have they?" asked Gertrude, in a low voice.
"Yes, of course!" cried Jenny, in surprise.
"Do you think a woman can take up her bundle and march off? Bah! Then no woman would stay with her husband a moment. No, no,--people get reconciled to one another and they just take the first opportunity to pay each other off. That is always great fun for me. Just you see, pet, how good Arthur will be when he comes back; for a whole month he will be the nicest husband in the world."
"That would be an impossibility for me," cried Gertrude, clearly and firmly. "To-day bitter as death, to-morrow fondly loving; it is simply shameful."
"Good gracious," she said at length, yawning, "one is as good as the other! If I were to separate from Arthur,--who knows but I might get a worse one! For of course I should marry again, what else can a woman do? By the way, mamma spoke to the lawyer--he urgently advised her to hush up the matter as well as possible. Mamma thought differently, but Mr. Sneider declared--you see now, one _can't_ get away even if one wants to--that there were no grounds for a divorce, and I said to mamma too, 'Gertrude,' said I, 'leave him? Incredible! She is dead in love with the man. He might have murdered somebody, I really believe, and she would still find excuses for him.' Was I right?"
Gertrude suffered tortures. She wrung her hands in silence and her eyes were fixed on the dark sky above her in which the evening star was now sparkling with a greenish light. Jenny yawned again.
"Ah, just think," she continued, "you don't know what we quarrelled about, Arthur and I. He reproached me with spending too much on my dress; of course that was only a pretext to give vent to his ill temper--there were business letters very likely containing bad news. I replied that did not concern him, I did not inquire into his expenses. Then he was cross and declared that I had tried in Nice to copy the dresses of the elegant French women. But it is not true, for I only bought two dresses there. Gracious, yes, they were rather dearer than if my dressmaker in Berlin had made them. Of course I said again, 'That is not your affair, for I pay for them.' Then he talked in a very moral strain about honorable women and German women who helped to increase the prosperity of a house. Other fortunes besides ours had been thrown away and when the truth was known it was always the fault of 'Madame.' He found fault with mamma for making herself so ridiculous with her youthful costumes, and at last he declared we owed some duty to our future children--Heaven preserve me! I have had to give up my poor sweet little Walter, and I will have no more. The pain of losing him was too great; I should die of anxiety. In short, he played the part of a real provincial Philistine, and finally even that of Othello, for he declared Col. von Brelow always had such a confidential air with me. That was too much for my patience. I proposed that we should separate then. You understand I only said so--for he is pretty obedient generally, when I hold the reins tight. And as I said before one can't get free for nothing. 'I will go at once!' I cried, and then I ran up to mamma."