As a matter of fact, Frederick preferred to talk to Mrs. Liebling rather than to Ingigerd.  If he was bored, it was with Ingigerd, not with Mrs. Liebling.

“Oh,” he said, “never mind.  Ingigerd Hahlstroem always has company.  She doesn’t need me.”

“My mother urged me,” said Mrs. Liebling, “not to take the children, but to leave them with her.  Had I obeyed, Siegfried would still have been alive.  She has a perfect right to reproach me severely.  And how can I face Siegfried’s father?  He did what he could to keep the children back.  He wrote to me and sent friends and his attorneys.”

“With ‘if’ and ‘hadn’t I,’ you can’t undo what has been done.  The event is too general, too titanic, to be thought of in such a way.  It is too fearful to be considered with reference to a single individual and his puny fate.  What happened had to happen, whether or not we believe in predestination.  We human beings must not have feelings so petty as to allow mere chance to play a role in this event.”

Frederick could not make up his mind to speak of his dream, in which Rosa figured as jumping from the boat with Siegfried in her arms and escaping to the white marble quay of the wonderful Columbus port, where he had been received by Peter Schmidt and where the Santa Maria was slowly crumbling away.  Since there were things in his dream that gave support to a belief in predestination relieving the mind of self-blame, his telling it might have soothed Mrs. Liebling’s troubled conscience; but Rosa had remained alive, Siegfried alone was dead.  Besides, though Frederick was constantly revolving the dream in his soul and kept recalling Hamlet’s words, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” he did not want to strengthen Mrs. Liebling’s superstition, which showed itself in a predisposition for table-tipping and patience-playing.

On walking to the other side of the deck, after a rather prolonged absence, he was greeted with a shout.

“Hullo, father confessor!” they cried.

“Come be seated, my saviour,” said Ingigerd, looking considerably better and brighter than the day before.

Frederick turned slightly pale, but did as he was bidden and said in a tone that did not harmonise with the good humour of the group: 

“Mrs. Liebling was Rubinstein’s pupil.  I haven’t met another woman on this trip to whom it is so well worth the while to talk.”

“All due respect to you, a matter of taste,” said Doctor Wilhelm.

“Let him alone.  My saviour is displeased,” said Ingigerd.

It was evident that occasionally she stood in awe of Frederick.

LVII