Her voice trembled with emotion. Suddenly she hurried back to Johannes, put her arm through his and said: "Excuse me for not asking whether _you_ were cold. You didn't put on your overcoat; shall I go up and get it? No? Well, anyhow button your jacket." She buttoned his jacket. Johannes offered his hand to Richmond. He was in a strangely absent mood, as though what was happening did not concern him. He gave an uncertain half-smile and muttered: "Glad to meet you again." Richmond showed no sign of guilt or of dissimulation. As he shook hands the pleasure of recognition flashed across his face and he made a polite bow. "I saw one of your books the other day in a shop-window in London," he said. "It had been translated. It was so jolly to see it there, like a message from home." Camilla walked in the middle and looked up at each of them in turn. At last she said: "Then you'll come on Tuesday, Johannes. Oh, excuse me for thinking only of my own affairs," she added with a laugh. But the next moment she repented and turned to Richmond, asking him to come too. He would only meet people he knew, Victoria and her mother were asked, besides them only about a dozen were coming. Suddenly Johannes stopped and said: "After all I may just as well go back." "See you on Tuesday," Camilla answered. Richmond took his hand and pressed it sincerely. So the two young people went on their way, alone and happy. XII The blue-clad Mother was in the most terrible suspense; every moment she expected a signal from the garden and the coast was not clear, nobody could come through it so long as her husband would not leave the house. Ah, that husband, that husband, with his forty years and his bald head! What sinister thoughts could they be that made him so pale this evening and kept him sitting in his chair, immovably, inexorably, staring at his paper? She had not a minute's peace; now it was eleven o'clock. The children she had put to bed long ago; but the husband did not budge. What if the signal came? The door would be opened with the dear little latch-key--and two men would meet, stand face to face and look into each other's eyes! She dared not finish the thought. She went away to the darkest corner of the room, wrung her hands, and at last said straight out: "Now it's eleven. If you _are_ going to the club you must go now." He got up at once, even paler than before, and went out of the room, out of the house. Outside the garden he stopped and listened to a whistle, a little signal. Steps were heard on the gravel, a key was put into the latch and turned--a moment later there were two shadows on the drawing-room blind. And he recognized the signal, the steps and the two shadows on the blind, none of it was new to him.