If he missed a Wednesday, or failed to write, she slipped out
of the house at night and paced Central Park for hours, fighting her
rebellious nerves with her pride and the strong independent will that
she had believed would enable her to leap lightly over every pitfall in
life.
Then he would come and her spirits would soar, her whole awakened being
possessed by a sort of reckless fury, a desperate resolve to enjoy the
meager portion of happiness allotted to her by an always grudging fate;
and for a few days after he left she would give herself up to blissful
and extravagant dreams.
But Nettelbeck was by no means lightly in love with Gisela Doering.
During the third summer, partly owing to the increased independence of
her growing charges, partly to his own expert management, they met in
long solitudes seldom disturbed. Gisela dismissed fears, ignored the
inevitable end, plunged headlong and was wildly happy. Nettelbeck was an
ardent and absorbed lover, for he knew that his time was short, and he
was determined to have one perfect memory in his secret life that the
woman who bore his name should never violate. Miss Howland had meted him
the portion his dilatoriness invited and married a fine upstanding young
American whose career was in Washington; and his family had peremptorily
commanded him to return in the spring (with the Kaiser's permission, a
mandate in itself) and marry the patient Baronin Irma Hammorwoerth.
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