'Hilda!'

'I mean what I say. But there may be something else. The difference may be there because I have not learned the same outward manners as the city people, because I do not laugh when they would laugh, cry when they would cry, act as they would act. I do not know half the things they like, or do, or say, but from what I have read I fancy that they are not at all simple, nor straightforward in their likings and dislikes, nor in their speech either. I do not even know whether I look like them, nor whether if I went to their places they would not take me for some strange wild animal. I make my own clothes. I have heard that they spend for one bit of dress as much as my mother and I spend in a whole year upon everything. I suppose they do, for your mother must wear what people wear in towns, and her things must cost a great deal. I think I should feel uncomfortable in them, but if we are married I will wear what you please--'

'How can you say such things--'

'I am only going over the points in which I am different from other women. That is one of them. Then I believe they learn all sorts of tricks--they can play on the piano--I have never seen one, for it is the only thing you have not got at Greifenstein,--they draw and paint, they talk in more than one language, whereas I only know what little French my mother could teach me, they sing from written music--for that matter, I can sing without, which I suppose ought to be harder. But they can do all those little things, which I suppose amuse you, and of which I cannot do one. Perhaps those accomplishments, or tricks, change them so that they feel more than I do. But I do not believe it. If I had the chance of learning them I would do it, to please you. It would not make me love you any more. I believe that we, who think of few people because we know few, think of them more and more lovingly. But if I took trouble to please you, it would show you how much I love you. Perhaps--perhaps that is what you really want, that I should say more, act more, make a greater show. Is that it, after all?'

Her mood had changed while she was speaking, perhaps by the enumeration of her points of inferiority. She turned her bright eyes towards Greif with a look of curiosity, as though wondering whether she had hit the mark, as indeed she had, by a pure accident.

'It cannot be that--I cannot be such a fool!' Greif exclaimed with all the resentment of a man who has been found out in his selfishness.

'I should not think any the worse of you,' said Hilda. 'It is I who have been foolish not to guess it before. How should you understand that I love you, merely because I say good morning and kiss you, and good evening and kiss you, and talk about the weather and your mother's ribbands! There must be something more. And yet I feel that if you married some one else, I should be very unhappy and should perhaps die.

Why not? There would not be anything to live for. Why can I not find some way of letting you know how I love you? There must be ways of showing it--but I have thought of everything I can do for you, and it is so little, for you have everything. Only--Greif, you must not doubt that I love you because I have no way of showing it--or if you do--'

'Forgive me, Hilda--I never doubted--'

'Oh, but you did, you did,' answered Hilda with great emphasis, and in a tone which showed how deeply the words had wounded her. 'It is natural, I suppose, and then, is it not better that I should know it? It is of no use to hide such things. I should have felt it, if you had not told me.'

It was not in Hilda's nature to shed tears easily, for she had been exposed to so few emotions in her life that she had never acquired the habit of weeping. But there was something in her expression that moved Greif more than a fit of sobbing could have done. There was an evident strength in her resentment, even though it showed itself in temperate words, which indicated a greater solidity of character than the young man had given her credit for. He had not realised that a love developed by natural and slow degrees, without a shadow of opposition, could be deeper and more enduring than the spasmodic pa.s.sion that springs up amidst the unstable surroundings of the world, ill nourished by an uncertain alternation of hope and fear, and p.r.o.ne to consume itself in the heat of its own expression. The one is about as different from the other as the slowly moving glacier of the Alps is from the gaudily decorated and artificially frozen concoction of the ice-cream vendor.

'I am very sorry I said it,' returned Greif penitently. He took her pa.s.sive hand in his, hoping to make the peace as quickly as he had broken it, but she did not return the pressure of his fingers.

'So am I,' she answered thoughtfully. 'I was angry at first. I do not think I am angry any more, but I cannot forget it, because, in some way or other, it must be my fault. Forgive you? There is nothing to forgive, dear. Why should one not speak out what is in one's heart? It would be a sort of lie, if one did not. I would tell you at once, if I thought you did not love me--'

Greif smiled.

'Ah Hilda! Since we have been sitting here, you have told me you thought I might change--do you not remember? Was what I said so much worse than that?'

'Of course it was,' she answered. 'Ever so much worse.'

Thereupon Greif meditated for some moments upon the nature of woman, and to tell the truth he was not so far advanced as to have no need for such study. Finding no suitable answer to what she had said, he could think of nothing better than to press her hand gently and stroke her long straight fingers. Presently, the pressure was returned and Greif congratulated himself, with some reason, upon having discovered the only plausible argument within his reach. But his wisdom did not go so far as to keep him silent.

'I think I understand you better than I did,' he said.

Hilda did not withdraw her hand, but it became again quite pa.s.sive in his, and she once more seemed deeply interested in the trees.

'Do you?' she asked indifferently after a pause.

'Perhaps I should rather say myself,' said Greif, finding that he had made a mistake. 'And that is quite another matter.'

'Yes--it is. Which do you mean?' Hilda laughed a little.

'Whichever you like best,' answered Greif, who was at his wit's end.

'Whichever I like?' she looked at him long, and then her face softened wonderfully. 'Let it be neither, dear,' she said. 'Let us not try to understand, but only love, love, love for ever! Love is so much better than any discussion about it, so much sweeter than anything that you or I can say in its favour, so much more real and lasting than the meanings of words. If you could describe it, it would be like anything else, and if you tried, and could not, you might think there was no such thing at all, and that would not be true.'

'You talk better than I do, sweetheart. Where did you learn to say such things?'

'I never learned, but I think sometimes that the heart talks better than the head, because the heart feels what it is talking about, and the head only thinks it feels. Do you see? You have learnt so much, that your head will not let your heart speak in plain German.'

Greif smiled at the phrase, which indeed contained a vast amount of truth.

'If you could make the professors of philosophy understand that,' he answered, 'you would simplify my education very much.'

'I do not know what philosophy is, dear, but if there were a professor here, I would try and persuade him, if it would do you any good. I know I am right.'

'Of course you are. You always will be--you represent what Plato hankered after and never found.'

'What was that?'

'Oh! nothing--only perfection,' laughed Greif.

'Nonsense! If I am perfection, what must you be? Plato himself? I do not know much about him, but I have read that he was a good man. Perhaps you are like him.'

'The resemblance cannot be very striking, for no one has noticed it, not even the professors themselves, who ought to know.'

'Must you go back to Schwarzburg?' Hilda asked, suddenly growing serious.

'Yes, but it is the last time. It will not seem long--there is so much to be done.'

'No. It will not seem long,' answered Hilda, thinking of all that she and her mother must do before the wedding. 'But the long times are not always the sad times,' she added sorrowfully.

'I shall be here for Christmas,' said Greif. 'And in the new year we will be married, and then--we must think of what we will do.'

'We will live at Sigmundskron, as you said, shall we not?'

'Yes. But before that we will go away for a while.' 'Away? Why?'

'People always do when they are married. We will go to Italy, if you like, or anywhere else.'

'But why must we go away?' asked Hilda anxiously. 'Do you think we shall not be as happy here as anywhere else? Oh, I could not live out of the dear forest!'

'But, sweetheart, you have never seen a town, nor anything of the world.

Would you not care to know what it is all like beyond the trees?'

'By and by--yes, I would like to see it all. But I would like poor old Sigmundskron to see how happy we shall be. I think the grey towers will almost seem to laugh on that day, and the big firs--they saw my great-grandfather's wedding, Greif! I would rather stay in the old place, for a little while. And, after all, you have travelled so much, that you can tell me about Italy by the fire in the long evenings, and I shall enjoy it quite as much because you will be always with me.'

'Thank you, darling,' said Greif tenderly, as he drew her cheek to his, and he said no more about the wedding trip on that afternoon.

The shadows were beginning to lengthen and the cool breeze was beginning to float down the valley, towards the heated plain far away, when Hilda and Greif rose from their seat under the shadow of the Hunger-Thurm, and strolled slowly along the broad road that led into the forest beyond.

Whatever feeling of unpleasantness had been roused by Greif's unlucky speech, had entirely disappeared, but the discussion had left its impress far in the depths of Hilda's heart. It had never occurred to her in her whole life before that any one, and especially Greif, could doubt the reality or the strength of her love. What had now pa.s.sed between them had left her with a new aspiration of which she had not hitherto been conscious. She felt that hereafter she must find some means of making Greif understand her. When he had said that he understood her better, she had very nearly been offended again, for she saw how very far he was from knowing what was in her heart. She longed, as many have longed before, for some opportunity of sacrifice, of heroic devotion, which might show him in one moment the whole depth and breadth and loyalty of her love.

CHAPTER IV

While Hilda and Greif were talking together the three older members of the family party had established themselves in a shady arbour of the garden, close to the low parapet, whence one could look down the sheer precipice to the leaping stream and watch the dark swallows shooting through the shadow and the sunshine, or the yellow b.u.t.terflies and moths fluttering from one resting-place to another, drawn irresistibly to the gleaming water, out of which their wet wings would never bear them up again to the flower-garden of the castle above.