All through the night it had been touch and go with Brenda. She had undressed and gone to bed, but not to sleep. She had got up, half dressed again, and sat at her open window staring at the silent summer darkness of the garden. Suppose she did it! Suppose she stole out of the house with the few pounds she possessed and sent a telegram to her mother or left a note assuring her that she was alive and well, but could not marry Lothar. It had been done before, and still the world went round. But she would have to walk up and down London all night, and probably be molested or taken up by the police; and the police were so stupid and yet so knowing that they would probably find out who she was and bring her back in time for the civil wedding which was to take place at the nearest Registrar’s office at eleven. There was no hurry. If she decided to go, six o’clock would be time enough, just before the servants were up. The quiet coat and skirt she meant to put on for the morning lay ready for her. Her wedding gown was in a wardrobe with her veil and wreath of orange blossom. She was wearing no myrtle. She knew that German brides invariably wore myrtle, but she was English and wished to remain English. She had taken her country for granted till now, when she was going to leave it for ever. All the liberty and sweetness of life here she had taken as a matter of course, and even joined in the laughter against England that seems amusing while you live there enjoying all it gives. She had thought it would be a pleasant adventure to set up house in a foreign land and taste its strangeness; but she had not thought enough of the way back, a way closed by marriage. She could never come back except as a visitor and by permission of Lothar. He had promised her that she could come back every year for some weeks, and unless she stole out of the house now at the eleventh hour she would have to depend on his promise. Altogether she would be dependent on him, it seemed—dependent on his pleasure and displeasure, on his opinions, on his family. Her own family would be a long way off henceforward. She lay down, half dressed, outside her bed, weary, dispirited and in doubt. So her mother found her, fast asleep, next morning. She had slept through the hour when she might have escaped, slept fast and dreamlessly as she had not done for a week.

“It is ten o’clock,” said Mrs. MÜller. “I would not allow them to wake you. But now you’ve only just time to dress.”

“I meant to wake at six,” said Brenda, still dazed with sleep.

“What for?” said Mrs. MÜller, whose hands were full of letters, telegrams and parcels. Her question remained unanswered, but she did not notice it because a maid came in with a breakfast tray and because there were various things to look at and discuss. She was not quite happy about her daughter’s marriage, but it never even occurred to her that anything could stop it now.

Anyhow, nothing did stop it. At three o’clock Brenda came out of church married, for better for worse, to Lothar, and at five o’clock she departed with him in her father’s car. They were going to Dover that night and to Paris to-morrow. The wedding had been a crowded one and well arranged. Eight bridesmaids and two pages had followed Brenda to the altar, a full choral service had accompanied her marriage vows, her friends had given her an affectionate send off, and as she took a last look at her old home she saw her own people in the foreground, her father and mother, Jem, Violet and Thekla, and Thekla’s two little girls, Mary and Barbara.

“Gott sei Dank, that’s over,” said Lothar. “Take off your veil, little wife. It is impossible to kiss a woman properly through a veil.”

“People can see in,” said Brenda doubtfully.

“What do I care?” cried Lothar, and strained her fiercely to him.

That sort of thing went on all through the honeymoon, and Brenda found it wearing. If Lothar wanted a veil off he said so without any consideration for her, and if he wanted to put his arm round her he did not mind who looked on. In fact, he walked her up and down the terrace of a Swiss hotel so interlaced that she knew every one English must be laughing at them; but she submitted rather than to risk an explosion of temper. He had no control over his temper, she soon found; and quite childish trifles roused it. Wherever they went, sound and fury went with them, so that she dreaded a meal because it usually meant a row with a waiter. She could see that every one who served him hated him, and she knew that his arrogance was never served as well as, for instance, her father’s considerate politeness. His behavior to her was uxorious and tyrannical, a blend that could not please a girl as detached and fastidious as Brenda. If she had been blindly in love with him, she might have borne to be adored, scolded, kissed, bullied, checked here and ordered there in a whirlwind of proprietary ardor. But she never had been blindly in love, and marriage did not make her so. There must be something wanting in one of them, she thought, some magnetic quality in him that would have fascinated her, or some strain of the elemental woman in her that would have surrendered to a mate with a club. When it was time to go to Berlin she felt relieved. He would be hard at work at once, he told her, and she would have many lonely hours. She looked forward to them.

About their arrival in Berlin he preserved a resolute silence that vexed her. He would not tell her whether they were to stay with his parents or in a hotel or in rooms till their home was ready for them, nor would he say in what quarter he thought of living or whether they were to have a flat or what he called a villa. When she questioned him about these matters he evaded her and enlarged on the perfect taste and judgment exercised by Little Mamma and his sisters in domestic matters. He said again and again that though Elsa’s husband was rich and Mina’s comparatively poor, they were both so blessed in their wives that their existence was one of unbroken comfort. In fact, they were men any man must envy.

“If you model yourself on my sisters in all ways, you will make me happy,” he said.

“When you talk like that you remind me that I want to be happy myself,” said Brenda, who was finding unsuspected and disturbing wells of anger in herself at times.

“A woman’s happiness lies in self-sacrifice and devotion to others. At least with us it does. Our ideas ...”

“Your ideas about women are out of date,” said Brenda. “You will find them all in our older poets.”

“You talk nonsense, my little treasure, and if you did not look so pretty in that white peignoir you would make me angry. My ideas about women are the right ones. At any rate they will govern your conduct in future. We have women in Berlin with what you call advanced opinions, but no one pays the least attention to them. We do not even allow a woman to attend a political meeting.” “You allow her to do heavy field work. I have seen it.”

“Why not? A woman is there to serve men and rear children. Otherwise the world could get on better without her. What does she do for the world? She has no economic existence at all, and she cannot bear arms. All she can do is to devote herself to others. My mamma and my sisters are busy from morning till night and never think of themselves at all.”

Brenda naturally wondered whether Lothar’s sisters were going to be as tiresome and officious as his mother, and she made up her mind that she would try to live as far from them as possible. With this idea in her mind, one wet afternoon she unfolded a map of Berlin that she had with her and began finding the Bavarian quarter where she knew that the Erdmanns lived.

“What are you doing?” said her husband when he came in and found her employed in this way. “A map of Berlin! Where did you get it? In London? Have they maps of Berlin in London? Do you understand how to use a map? You see this long street, the KurfÜrstendamm! That is where we shall live. You have nothing to compare with it in London.”

“I should like to live right in the forest, outside the city,” said Brenda.

“We shall live in the KurfÜrstendamm,” said Lothar and would say no more. It was not till they actually arrived in Berlin a week later, and were received at the station by a family group with offerings of flowers, that Brenda learned what hung over her. The group consisted of Little Mamma, Elsa, Mina, Professor August Zorn and some children. Brenda, alighting in a limp, weary condition, got a confused impression of gushing embraces, critical glances, flowers, pigtails and a harsh croaking voice that laid down the law even to Little Mamma. When the group moved on, some of it got into a taxi and some said they would go back, as they came, by tramcar. Brenda found herself in a large taxi with Little Mamma, Lothar and Professor Zorn. She wondered why he came in the taxi and let his wife and children go by car; and she decided at a glance that she did not like him. She had never seen such a plain little pompous irritable man. He had fat cheeks the color of tallow, a button nose, beady black eyes, and a quick, fidgety manner. As he got into the taxi he stumbled over Brenda’s dressing bag, and that upset his temper sadly.

“The bag is much too big,” he said. “My wife has a small bag which she can carry. It holds my things as well as hers. I hate impediments on a journey.”

“Gott sei Dank, our travels are over,” said Lothar. “When one marries one has to have a wedding journey, but ours has lasted too long. I’m sick of hotels.”

“Where are we going?” said Brenda, who though it was time to know.

“Where does a young wife expect to go?” snapped August. “What a strange question! To your husband’s home, of course.”

“But we have not chosen our home yet,” said Brenda.

“It has been chosen for you,” said Frau Erdmann solemnly. “You will find everything ready, even to the roast in the oven and the cook to dish it up. It has been hard work, but every day when I returned with an aching head and agitated nerves I said to Wilhelm, ‘I do it for my son and he will thank me.’”

“Little Mamma, I thank you from the bottom of my heart,” exclaimed Lothar, and printed a resounding kiss somewhere near one of the sandy wings that nearly covered his mother’s ears. “Do you mean that you have taken a flat and put my furniture into it?” said Brenda.

“‘My’ is a word never heard on the lips of a German wife,” said the Professor. “You and all you bring with you are now the property of Lothar.”

Brenda had not known many violent dislikes in her life, but she conceived one now for the Professor, and as she thought he was behaving offensively she ignored him and, turning to her mother-in-law, asked again whether a flat had really been taken for them. But before Frau Erdmann could reply August bounced to his feet, livid with fury, and shouted to the driver to stop.

“What is it, August?” said Frau Erdmann. “Are you not well?”

The little man was actually spluttering with rage as he answered.

“I am evidently not good enough for the gracious one. When I speak she does not answer. This is English Kultur. When a man of years and learning addresses such a silly goose, she replies with a stare and does not know enough to open her mouth. But there is a limit to what my dignity can endure. Civility is my right and I insist on it. If Lothar is under the slipper, it is not my affair. Such manners are typical.”

Brenda was aghast and looked at Lothar. She saw no promise of support in his face, but only scowling impatience; while Frau Erdmann, after waiting for him to speak, said: “I should have thought you would expect Brenda to be polite to your relatives. My idea of good manners is to reply amiably when I am addressed. August was quite right. It is unbecoming in a young wife to speak as if anything in the house belonged to her only.”

“It was quite accidental and shall never happen again,” said Brenda, and then the taxi stopped at a tall house liberally decorated with turrets and having on either side of the front door two colossal figures made of red brick. A lift took the perturbed party to the fourth floor, where on one of the doors Brenda saw a brass plate with her husband’s name. A blowsy-looking maidservant wearing a tartan skirt, a velveteen bodice, and a coral brooch appeared in answer to the bell, bid them good day and invited them in. She looked hard at Brenda, addressed Frau Erdmann as gnÄdige Frau, and said that she was all in a flutter because the meat had only just come and would not be ready as early as it should have been.

“Welcome, little wife, to our home,” said Lothar as they entered, but he was out of humor and spoke constrainedly.

As Brenda crossed the threshold she saw that the passage was hung with wreaths and garlands of green stuff, as if it had been Christmas, and on the walls she saw slabs of wood on which proverbs and greetings were done in rough poker work.

“All these Mina and the children have prepared,” Frau Erdmann pointed out, and then, throwing open a door, she said in a proud voice, “The dining-room!”

It really was a trying moment for Brenda, who had thought out her color schemes with the greatest care and chosen all her furniture in relation to the walls and carpets she meant to have as a setting. She wanted a warm glowing dining-room with sun on the breakfast table, a Persian carpet on the floor and curtains to go with the tawny pinks of it.

“The dining-room shall be either orange or rose, according to what I find,” she said to her mother. “The drawing-room shall be creamy white mostly and my bedroom green and blue. I know just how it will all look, and you must soon come to see it.” And now—here was the dining-room with the furniture she had chosen set against walls that looked as if large brown chenille serpents were crawling over a sickly yellow ground. The ceiling was in heavy shades of brown and gamboge to match the walls, and the curtains were of thick chocolate reps with elaborate upholstered canopies. Even the carpet was brown, and on the crookedly set dinner table there was a vase of artificial flowers.

“Very practical,” said the Professor. “Very rich and elegant, too. Little Mamma has taste. That one must allow. Elsa wanted light colors here, I believe, but she need not consider expense at all. This brown will last a lifetime and does not fade much. We have it ourselves in our salon.”

He looked like it, thought Brenda, and followed Frau Erdmann through a communicating door into the drawing-room, which had been distempered a hard cold slate, neither blue nor gray.

“This room is not to my taste,” began Frau Erdmann, and Brenda said unwarily that perhaps it could be altered and that she had thought of having ivory white walls. Her Chesterfield and all her big comfortable easy chairs were covered with an attractive flowery chintz and she had found some fine pieces of old furniture for this room, one of which was an inlaid French cabinet with good-sized drawers.

“I was not thinking of the walls,” said Frau Erdmann. “The walls are as I chose them, and if they are not pleasing to you I am sorry. I did my best, and more than that no one can do. But cotton chair covers in the salon I should not have advised. In a bedroom, yes, but in a salon one expects velvet or brocade. I should also have preferred a suite of new furniture such as you can buy at several places in Berlin. Your chairs are a shape that we consider quite out of fashion and your other pieces do not match. The chest of drawers would look better in a bedroom in my opinion, but Elsa seemed to think it should be placed here. She has some ideas I do not hold with, but she agrees with me about these cotton covers. I am afraid this room will make a bad impression, and that is a pity, as you have your way to make amongst us. People will think that you are trying to bring over English fashions. Even the Empress Frederick found that it was a mistake to do that. We Berliners are quite satisfied with our own taste in every way.”

Brenda did not reply to this torrent of expostulation, because her spirits had fallen to zero. She knew Lothar well enough now to know that he was thoroughly out of humor. August was eyeing her with malevolent curiosity, and when the whole party moved on into her bedroom she hardly knew whether she wanted to laugh or cry. For here the walls and the carpet burst upon her in glaring red, a red that was oppressive and detestable. The windows were tightly shut, the air smelled stuffily of new wood, new paint and new blankets, and behind her washstand some one had hung a great breadth of coarse straw-colored canvas on which monkeys cut out of black cloth had been stitched by machine.

“What fascinating monkeys!” said Brenda, going up to them.

“They are the last word in artistic decoration,” said August, and Brenda instantly wished they were not on her walls.

“I hope you are satisfied with everything,” said Frau Erdmann.

“But, Little Mamma, I am more than satisfied,” cried Lothar. “When I think of all the trouble you have saved us and the fatigue you have undergone at your age, I cannot thank you enough.”

Brenda had gone to one of the windows which she found looked out at a courtyard, surrounded by tall houses. She knew enough of Continental life to know that a room with such an outlook would be noisy all day and most of the night, and that the only way of securing privacy was by keeping curtains closely drawn. As she stood there her husband came up to her and spoke in a low voice that she knew had vials of wrath behind it.

“My mother is waiting for you to thank her for all she has done,” he said.

“I didn’t want it done.”

“Nevertheless, you will thank my mother for the trouble she has taken.”

With mechanical politeness Brenda turned to Frau Erdmann and said something that might pass for thanks. The ensuing farewells were strained, and when the husband and wife were left to themselves their first words in their future home were words of discord. Brenda had been trying to make up her mind to say little or nothing of the vexation she felt, but Lothar stirred her anger at once.

“Frauenlaunen? Women’s whims! I’ve no patience with them,” he began.

“I think you ought to have told me,” cried Brenda.

“Told you what?”

“Told me that you had commissioned your mother to take this flat and choose these atrocious papers and carpets. I could have explained that I wanted to choose my own.”

“August is right,” said Lothar. “There is too much ‘my’ in your point of view. This is not your house. It is mine. You are in it because you are my wife. If I am satisfied, nothing else matters.”

“I could not live with these walls. I shall have them all redone at my own expense.”

“You will not have one done. I will not permit you to waste our joint income in such a senseless way. You have married a man and not a milksop, and the sooner you find it out the better.”

“But surely I am to have money of my own. My father said so.”

“It will be spent as I direct.”

“Well ... I hope we sha’n’t quarrel about money.”