When Tita was getting ready for dinner I told her about the yellow fox.
A married man must have no secrets.

"He is not capable of such a thing," she says, with a grand air.

"But he did it," I point out. "What is more, he glories in it. What did
he say when I remonstrated with him on the way home! '_Why_,' says he,
'_I will put an end to Krumm! I will abolish Krumm! I will extinguish
Krumm!_' Now, madame, who is responsible for this? Who had been praising
Franziska night and day as the sweetest, gentlest, cleverest girl in the
world, until this young man determines to have a flirtation with her and
astonish you?"

"A flirtation!" says Tita, faintly. "Oh no! Oh, I never meant that."

"Ask him just now, and he will tell you that women deserve no better.
They have no hearts; they are treacherous. They have beautiful eyes, but
no conscience. And so he means to take them as they are, and have his
measure of amusement."

"Oh, I am sure he never said anything so abominably wicked," cried Tita,
laying down the rose that Franziska had given her for her hair. "I know
he could not say such things. But if he is so wicked--if he has said
them--it is not too late to interfere. _I_ will see about it."

She drew herself up as if Jupiter had suddenly armed her with his
thunderbolts. If Charlie had seen her at this moment he would have
quailed. He might by chance have told the truth, and confessed that all
the wicked things he had been saying about woman's affection were only
a sort of rhetoric, and that he had no sort of intention to flirt with
poor Franziska, nor yet to extinguish and annihilate Dr. Krumm.

The heartbroken boy was in very good spirits at dinner. He was inclined
to wink. Tita, on the contrary, maintained an impressive dignity of
demeanour; and when Franziska's name happened to be mentioned she spoke
of the young girl as her very particular friend, as though she would
dare Charlie to attempt a flirtation with one who held that honour. But
the young man was either blind or reckless, or acting a part for mere
mischief. He pointed the finger of scorn at Dr. Krumm. He asked Tita
if he should bring her a yellow fox next day. He declared he wished
he could spend the remainder of his life in a Black Forest Inn, with a
napkin over his arm, serving chopins. He said he would brave the wrath
of the Furst by shooting a capercailzie on the very first opportunity,
to bring the shining feathers home to Franziska.

When Tita and I went upstairs at night the small and gentle creature was
grievously perplexed.

"I cannot make it out," she said. "He is quite changed. What is the
matter with him?"

"You behold, madam, in that young man the moral effects of vulpicide. A
demon has entered into him. You remember, in 'Der Freischutz,' how--"

"Did you say vulpicide?" she asks, with a sweet smile. "I understood
that Charlie's crime was that he did _not_ kill the fox."

I allow her the momentary triumph. Who would grudge to a woman a little
verbal victory of that sort? And, indeed, Tita's satisfaction did not
last long. Her perplexity became visible on her face once more.

"We are to be here three weeks," she said, almost to herself, "and he
talks of flirting with poor Franziska. Oh, I never meant that!"

"But what did you mean?" I ask her, with innocent wonder.

Tita hangs down her head, and there is an end to that conversation; but
one of us, at least, has some recollection of a Christmas wager.




IV--CONFESSIO AMANTIS

Charlie was not in such good spirits next morning. He was standing
outside the inn, in the sweet, resinous-scented air, watching Franziska
coming and going, with her bright face touched by the early sunlight,
and her frank and honest eyes lit up by a kindly look when she passed
us. His conscience began to smite him for claiming that fox.

We spent the day in fishing a stream some few miles distant from
Huferschingen, and Franziska accompanied us. What need to tell of our
success with the trout and the grayling, or of the beautiful weather,
or of the attentive and humble manner in which the unfortunate youth
addressed Franziska from time to time?

In the evening we drove back to Huferschingen. It was a still and
beautiful evening, with the silence of the twilight falling over the
lonely valleys and the miles upon miles of darkening pines. Charlie has
not much of a voice, but he made an effort to sing with Tita:

     "The winds whistle cold and the stars glimmer red,
     The sheep are in fold and the cattle in shed;"

and the fine old glee sounded fairly well as we drove through the
gathering gloom of the forest. But Tita sang, in her low, sweet fashion,
that Swedish bridal song that begins:

     "Oh, welcome her so fair, with bright and flowing hair;
     May Fate through life befriend her, love and smiles attend her;"

and though she sang quietly, just as if she were singing to herself, we
all listened with great attention, and with great gratitude too. When we
got out of Huferschingen, the stars were out over the dark stretches of
forest, and the windows of the quaint old inn were burning brightly.

"And have you enjoyed the amusement of the day?" says Miss Fahler,
rather shyly, to a certain young man who is emptying his creel of
fish. He drops the basket to turn round and look at her face and say
earnestly:

"I have never spent so delightful a day; but it wasn't the fishing."

Things were becoming serious.

And next morning Charlie got hold of Tita, and said to her, in rather a
shamefaced way:

"What am I to do about that fox? It was only a joke, you know; but if
Miss Fahler gets to hear of it, she'll think it was rather shabby."

It was always Miss Fahler now; a couple of days before it was Franziska.

"For my part," says Tita, "I can't understand why you did it. What
honour is there in shooting a fox?"

"But I wanted to give the skin to her."

It was "her" by this time.

"Well, I think the best thing you can do is to go and tell her all about
it; and also to go and apologise to Dr. Krumm."

Charlie started.

"I will go and tell her, certainly; but as for apologising to Krumm,
that is absurd!"

"As you please," says Tita.

By-and-by Franziska--or rather Miss Fahler--came out of the small garden
and round by the front of the house.

"O Miss Fahler," says Charlie, suddenly,--and with that she stops and
blushes slightly,--"I've got something to say to you. I am going to make
a confession. Don't be frightened; it's only about a fox--the fox that
was brought home the day before yesterday; Dr. Krumm shot that."

"Indeed," says Franziska, quite innocently, "I thought you shot it."

"Well, I let them imagine so. It was only a joke."

"But it is of no matter; there are many yellow foxes. Dr. Krumm can
shoot them at another time; he is always here. Perhaps you will shoot
one before you go."

With that Franziska passed into the house, carrying her fruit with her.
Charlie was left to revolve her words in his mind. Dr. Krumm could shoot
foxes when he chose; he was always here. He, Charlie, on the contrary,
had to go away in little more than a fortnight. There was no Franziska
in England; no pleasant driving through great pine woods in the
gathering twilight; no shooting of yellow foxes, to be brought home in
triumph and presented to a beautiful and grateful young woman. Charlie
walked along the white road and overtook Tita, who had just sat down on
a little camp-stool, and got out the materials for taking a water-colour
sketch of the Huferschingen Valley. He sat down at her feet on the warm
grass.

"I suppose I sha'n't interrupt your painting by talking to you?" he
says.

"Oh dear, no," is the reply; and then he begins, in a somewhat
hesitating way, to ask indirect questions and drop hints and fish for
answers, just as if this small creature, who was busy with her sepias
and olive greens, did not see through all this transparent cunning.

At last she said to him, frankly:

"You want me to tell you whether Franziska would make a good wife for
you. She would make a good wife for any man. But then you seem to think
that I should intermeddle and negotiate and become a go-between. How
can I do that. My husband is always accusing me of trying to make up
matches; and you know that isn't true."

"I know it isn't true," says the hypocrite; "but you might only this
once. I believe all you say about this girl; I can see it for myself;
and when shall I ever have such a chance again?"

"But dear me!" says Tita, putting down the white palette for a moment,
"how can I believe you are in earnest? You have only known her three
days."

"And that is quite enough," says Charlie, boldly, "to let you find out
all you want to know about a girl if she is of the right sort. If she
isn't you won't find out in three years. Now look at Franziska; look at
the fine, intelligent face and the honest eyes; you can have no doubt
about her; and then I have all the guarantee of your long acquaintance
with her."

"Oh," says Tita, "that is all very well. Franziska is an excellent girl,
as I have told you often--frank, kind, well educated, and unselfish. But
you cannot have fallen in love with her in three days?"

"Why not?" says this blunt-spoken young man.

"Because it is ridiculous. If I meddle in the affair I should probably
find you had given up the fancy in other three days; or if you did marry
her and took her to England you would get to hate me because I alone
should know that you had married the niece of an innkeeper."

"Well, I like that!" says he, with a flush in his face. "Do you think I
should care two straws whether my friends knew I had married the niece
of an innkeeper? I should show them Franziska. Wouldn't that be enough?
An innkeeper's niece! I wish the world had more of 'em, if they're like
Franziska."

"And besides," says Tita, "have you any notion as to how Franziska
herself would probably take this mad proposal?"

"No," says the young man, humbly. "I wanted you to try and find out what
she thought about me; and if, in time something were said about this
proposal, you might put in a word or two, you know, just to--to give
her an idea, you know, that you don't think it quite so mad, don't you
know?"

"Give me your hand, Charlie," says Tita, with a sudden burst of
kindness. "I'll do what I can for you; for I know she's a good girl, and
she will make a good wife to the man who marries her."

You will observe that this promise was given by a lady who never, in any
circumstances whatsoever, seeks to make up matches, who never speculates
on possible combinations when she invites young people to her house in
Surrey, and who is profoundly indignant, indeed, when such a charge is
preferred against her. Had she not, on that former Christmas morning,
repudiated with scorn the suggestion that Charlie might marry before
another year had passed? Had she not, in her wild confidence, staked
on a wager that assumption of authority in her household and out of it
without which life would be a burden to her? Yet no sooner was the name
of Franziska mentioned, and no sooner had she been reminded that Charlie
was going with us to Huferschingen, than the nimble little brain set to
work. Oftentimes it has occurred to one dispassionate spectator of her
ways that this same Tita resembled the small object which, thrown into
a dish of some liquid chemical substance, suddenly produces a mass of
crystals. The constituents of those beautiful combinations, you see,
were there; but they wanted some little shock to hasten the slow
process of crystallisation. Now in our social circle we have continually
observed groups of young people floating about in an amorphous and
chaotic fashion--good for nothing but dawdling through dances, and
flirting, and carelessly separating again; but when you dropped Tita
among them, then you would see how rapidly this jellyfish sort of
existence was abolished--how the groups got broken up, and how the
sharp, businesslike relations of marriage were precipitated and made
permanent. But would she own to it? Never! She once went and married
her dearest friend to a Prussian officer; and now she declares he was a
selfish fellow to carry off the girl in that way, and rates him soundly
because he won't bring her to stay with us more than three months out
of the twelve. There are some of us get quite enough of this Prussian
occupation of our territory.

"Well," says Tita to this long English lad, who is lying sprawling on
the grass, "I can safely tell you this, that Franziska likes you very
well."

He suddenly jumps up, and there is a great blush on his face.

"Has she said so?" he asks, eagerly.

"Oh yes! in a way. She thinks you are good-natured. She likes the
English generally. She asked me if that ring you wear was an engaged
ring."

These disconnected sentences were dropped with a tantalising slowness
into Charlie's eager ears.

"I must go and tell her directly that it is not," said he; and he might
probably have gone off at once had not Tita restrained him.

"You must be a great deal more cautious than that if you wish to carry
off Franziska some day or other. If you were to ask her to marry you
now she would flatly refuse you, and very properly; for how could a
girl believe you were in earnest? But if you like, Charlie, I will say
something to her that will give her a hint; and if she cares for you at
all before you go away she won't forget you. I wish I was as sure of you
as I am of her."

"Oh I can answer for myself," says the young man, with a becoming
bashfulness.

Tita was very happy and pleased all that day. There was an air of
mystery and importance about her. I knew what it meant; I had seen it
before.

Alas! poor Charlie!




V--"GAB MIR EIN' RING DABEI"

Under the friendly instructions of Dr. Krumm, whom he no longer regarded
as a possible rival, Charlie became a mighty hunter; and you may be sure
that he returned of an evening with sprigs of fir in his cap for the
bucks he had slain, Franziska was not the last to come forward and shake
hands with him and congratulate him, as is the custom in these primitive
parts. And then she was quite made one of the family when we sat down to
dinner in the long, low-roofed room; and nearly every evening, indeed,
Tita would have her to dine with us and play cards with us.

You may suppose, if these two young folk had any regard for each other,
those evenings in the inn must have been a pleasant time for them. There
were never two partners at whist who were so courteous to each other,
so charitable to each other's blunders. Indeed, neither would ever admit
that the other blundered. Charlie used to make some frightful mistakes
occasionally that would have driven any other player mad; but you should
have seen the manner in which Franziska would explain that he had no
alternative but to take her king with his ace, that he could not know
this, and was right in chancing that. We played three-penny points, and
Charlie paid for himself and his partner, in spite of her entreaties.
Two of us found the game of whist a profitable thing.

One day a registered letter came for Charlie. He seized it, carried it
to a window, and then called Tita to him. Why need he have any secret
about it? It was nothing but a ring--a plain hoop with a row of rubies.

"Do you think she would take this thing?" he said, in a low voice.

"How can I tell?"

The young man blushed and stammered, and said:

"I don't want you to ask her to take the ring, but to get to know
whether she would accept any present from me. And I would ask her myself
plainly, only you have been frightening me so much about being in a
hurry. And what am I to do? Three days hence we start."

Tita looked down with a smile and said, rather timidly:

"I think if I were you I would speak to her myself--but very gently."

We were going off that morning to a little lake some dozen miles off to
try for a jack or two. Franziska was coming with us. She was, indeed,
already outside, superintending the placing in the trap of our rods
and bags. When Charlie went out she said that everything was ready; and
presently our peasant driver cracked his whip, and away we went.

Charlie was a little grave, and could only reply to Tita's fun with an
effort. Franziska was mostly anxious about the fishing, and hoped that
we might not go so far to find nothing.

We found few fish anyhow. The water was as still as glass, and as clear;
the pike that would have taken our spinning bits of metal must have
been very dull-eyed pike indeed. Tita sat at the bow of the long punt
reading, while our boatman steadily and slowly plied his single oar.
Franziska was for a time eagerly engaged in watching the progress of
our fishing, until even she got tired of the excitement of rolling in an
immense length of cord, only to find that our spinning bait had hooked a
bit of floating wood or weed. At length Charlie proposed that he should
go ashore and look out for a picturesque site for our picnic, and he
hinted that perhaps Miss Franziska might also like a short walk to
relieve the monotony of the sailing. Miss Franziska said she would be
very pleased to do that. We ran them in among the rushes, and put them
ashore, and then once more started on our laborious career.

Tita laid down her book. She was a little anxious. Sometimes you could
see Charlie and Franziska on the path by the side of the lake; at other
times the thick trees by the water's side hid them.

The solitary oar dipped in the lake; the boat glided along the shores.
Tita took up her book again. The space of time that passed may be
inferred from the fact that, merely as an incident to it, we managed
to catch a chub of four pounds. When the excitement over this event had
passed, Tita said:

"We must go back to them. What do they mean by not coming on and telling
us? It is most silly of them."

We went back by the same side of the lake, and we found both Franziska
and her companion seated on the bank at the precise spot where we had
left them. They said it was the best place for the picnic. They asked
for the hamper in a businesslike way. They pretended they had searched
the shores of the lake for miles.

And while Tita and Franziska are unpacking the things, and laying the
white cloth smoothly on the grass, and pulling out the bottles for
Charlie to cool in the lake, I observe that the younger of the two
ladies rather endeavours to keep her left hand out of sight. It is a
paltry piece of deception. Are we moles, and blinder than moles, that we
should continually be made the dupes of these women? I say to her:

"Franziska, what is the matter with your left hand?"

"Leave Franziska's left hand alone," says Tita, severely.

"My dear," I reply, humbly, "I am afraid Franziska has hurt her left
hand."

At this moment Charlie, having stuck the bottles among the reeds, comes
back, and, hearing our talk, he says, in a loud and audacious way:

"Oh, do you mean the ring? It's a pretty little thing I had about me,
and Franziska has been good enough to accept it. You can show it to
them, Franziska."

Of course he had it about him. Young men always do carry a stock of ruby
rings with them when they go fishing, to put in the noses of the fish. I
have observed it frequently.

Franziska looks timidly at Tita, and then she raises her hand, that
trembles a little. She is about to take the ring off to show it to us
when Charlie interposes:

"You needn't take it off, Franziska."

And with that, somehow, the girl slips away from among us, and Tita
is with her, and we don't get a glimpse of either of them until the
solitude resounds with our cries for luncheon.

In due time Charlie returned to London, and to Surrey with us in very
good spirits. He used to come down very often to see us; and one evening
at dinner he disclosed the fact that he was going over to the Black
Forest in the following week, although the November nights were chill
just then.

"And how long do you remain?"

"A month," he says.

"Madam," I say to the small lady at the other end of the table, "a month
from now will bring us to the 4th of December. You have lost the bet
you made last Christmas morning; when will it please you to resign your
authority?"

"Oh, bother the bet," says this unscrupulous person.

"But what do you mean?" says Charlie.

"Why," I say to him, "she laid a wager last Christmas Day that you
would not be married within a year. And now you say you mean to bring
Franziska over on the 4th of December next. Isn't it so?"

"Oh, no!" he says; "we don't get married till the spring."

You should have heard the burst of low, delightful laughter with which
Queen Tita welcomed this announcement. She had won her wager.