"You confounded fellow! you humorous dog! you funny rascal!" cried the commerzienrath. "I suppose you will tell me next that I have stolen the boots I am wearing. Couldn't you lend me five _thalers_ for a day or two? you----"

And he poked me in the ribs with his thumb, and held his sides with laughter at his capital joke.

"If you are a rich man, then," I continued very seriously, and it cost me no effort to be serious now--"then say yes, and the thing is settled."

I held out my hand, and he struck his own into it, laughing still like mad.

"The thing is settled then," I said, drawing a deep breath.

"Settled," he said.

"And I shall hold you to your word, Herr Commerzienrath," I said: "You may count surely upon that."

"And I count upon you," he answered, still holding my hand fast in one of his own, while with the other he gave me little raps upon the knuckles. "If you were not a man to be relied upon, would I have taken so much pains about you, do you suppose? you--Oh! murder!"

In my excitement I must have pressed the old man's hand a little too hard, for he gave a loud outcry and made a horrible grimace: I begged his pardon, and he laughed and shook his hand, and again cried "Murder!

you man of iron! you confounded fellow!" and poked me out at the door, with his thumb, just as he had poked out the justizrath.

CHAPTER XIV.

I had spent the rest of the forenoon in my room, in order to finish a calculation necessary to the proper adjustment of the machine at the quarry. But I had not got beyond the statement of the problem. The new, almost certain prospect of being able to carry out my great wish to enlarge our works, almost made me dizzy. In fancy I saw the s.p.a.ce of ground where my lodging was, covered with buildings; I saw the flames springing from the great furnaces and smoke pouring from the tall chimneys; I heard the clang of hammer on anvil, and saw the crowd of dingy workmen thronging the wide yards in the evening, and scattering in the streets of a new quarter where in cleanly houses cheerful homes awaited them, where they could rest from the toils of the day. And a change had pa.s.sed over the desolate house in which I lived; fresh green sward surrounded it, a Triton spouted a jet of water high into the air from the old basin of sandstone into which it fell plashing back, where a host of goldfish played merrily, or darted back from the margin at the approach of a pair who came up hand in hand and bent over the water to see their own faces reflected. But the reflection quivered and broke, so that only now and then could be seen two bright blue eyes and two full red lips, nor was it clear whether the eyes flashed with anger or with love, or whether the lips were pouted to a scornful word or to a kiss.

"Dinner will soon be served, Herr Engineer," said William Kluckhuhn, entering. "Can I a.s.sist the Herr Engineer to dress?"

William regularly came with this polite offer of his services, although I just as regularly declined them. But to-day he would not take any dismissal, and helped me on with my best coat so actively, and brushed and touched me up with such zealous pertinacity, that I had to ask him if he had any request to make of me.

"Oh, no," he answered; "but you were so kind as to get me back into favor with the master, who was in the wrong altogether, for even if I drank champagne----"

"Very well, William," I said.

"So I only wanted to tell you," he went on in a confidential tone, "that they have had a terrible quarrel, and I very plainly heard----"

"But I do not wish to hear it, William."

"But you need not mind my telling you, for if I listened at the door a little bit, that was not your doing, and it was not my doing that the door was ajar, and I plainly heard our lady say that she would never forgive it you----"

"Well," I muttered.

"And when she said it, she looked----"

"So you could see too?"

"O, the door was pretty wide open," William answered, shrugging his shoulders, "and I made a rattling with the plates on purpose, but the Fraulein was in such a rage----"

And William here made a face, apparently intended to represent the one he had seen through the crack of the door, but so absurdly incredible that I burst out laughing.

"Very good," he said; "I wanted to give you the hint; for when she is angry----but you can laugh."

And William sighed deeply and looked at me in a supplicating manner.

"Well?" I said.

"And I wanted to beg you," he went on, "that if--ahem! you know what I mean--you would be so good as to help me and my Louise too, for we have been waiting now six years, and it is easy for you, Herr Engineer. Is it not, now, Herr Engineer?"

"William, I firmly believe you have taken leave of your senses," I answered, and strode past him out of the room with a look intended to express majestic indignation.

But William's ears had served him faithfully, as I presently learned at table. The company was small; no one besides the inmates, except Arthur, who had come over in the justizrath's carriage from Rossow, and greeted me as usual with excessive friendliness. The two Eleonoras, owing to the warmth of the day, appeared in virgin white, and as a group, of course. Hermine kept us waiting awhile. The commerzienrath drew me aside and whispered to me that the prince had sent him word that he must be quite satisfied about the chalk-quarry before the negotiation went any further, and that he would send over his carriage this afternoon to bring me to Rossow.

I had no time to answer this communication, which for more than one reason was unacceptable to me, for at this moment Hermine entered and I saw plainly that she had been weeping, although she tried hard to appear as gay and careless as possible. The day was so charming--so delicious! and to-morrow it would be finer still, and the party to the Schlachtensee would be too delightful! The company was to be the very nicest that could be; all young people, not an old one among them.

After dinner they would go over to Trantow to pick up Hans, who could not be dispensed with, then to Sulitz, where Herr von Zarrentin and his charming wife would join them; then arrive between five and six at the coast-village Sa.s.sitz; a stroll through the dunes and the beech forest as far as the Schlachtensee; supper, with pine-apple-punch, and moonrise there; return through the wood to the cross-roads at the Rossow pines, where their carriage and horses would be ready for them; return of the whole company without exception to Zehrendorf; and wind up all with tea and punch, and, if possible, a dance for such as were very nice.

"Bravo! bravo! That is a plan!" cried Arthur, enthusiastically clapping his hands.

"I knew it would have your approval, dear Arthur," said the fair designer, stretching her hand to him over the table, with her sweetest smile; "you understand these things, and I count upon you especially."

"I did not count upon _you_," she added, turning suddenly to me.

"I neither said, nor supposed anything of the kind, Fraulein Hermine,"

I replied.

"That is the very reason why one cannot count upon you in such things.

You don't think about them. Of course! How can any one whose mind is occupied with matters of so much more importance?"

Hermine was never particularly amiable in her behavior to me, but her conduct to-day was so pointedly unkind, and her vehemence too void of any visible cause, not to strike the most indifferent spectator, not to mention the steuerrath and the Born, who were very far from indifferent, and now cast meaning looks at Arthur, as if urging him to strike while the iron was hot. Arthur was evidently quite disposed to follow their counsel, but did not precisely know how to go about it; so he contented himself with giving Hermine a languishing look, and curling his little black beard. The others seemed to gather from Hermine's last words, and still more from the excited tone in which she had spoken, that there was something unusual in the air. Fraulein Duff, who had been all the time looking remarkably pale and agitated, raised her eyes, as if in despair, to the ceiling, while the justizrath riveted his gaze on a dish of salad, and drummed lightly on the table; Emilie looked at her friend Elise, and Elise at Emilie, Emilie's look inquiring "Does an innocent child like me need to understand these things?" and Elise's replying "Sport peacefully, sweet cherub! Leave this to us experienced ones!" Even William Kluckhuhn, who stood waiter in hand at the sideboard, pulled a long face, as if the turn things had taken was not altogether to his satisfaction, and the commerzienrath alone was so busy with the other waiter, who was uncorking under his eyes a bottle of the famous hock, that he had not the least idea as to the cause of the sudden silence that had fallen upon the company. He looked up in the most unconscious manner in the world, and asked innocently--"I beg your pardon, but what were you speaking about?"

The peculiar expression which I had noticed in so many different shades on the faces of the guests, grew several tints deeper. The silence was more profound; the second waiter John, who was in the act of uncorking the '22 hock, stopped with the cork half-drawn, and the plates which William was handling rattled nervously, as the steuerrath pouring out with unsteady hand a gla.s.s of wine, replied:

"Our dear Hermine was remarking that in the innocent amus.e.m.e.nts which youth loves, one could not count upon our excellent George--you will excuse me, George, for calling you by the old familiar name--because our young friend has so many other, and, we will admit, more important things on his mind."

The commerzienrath poured out with his own hands the precious wine into the large hock-gla.s.ses--only a thumb's breadth deep, as otherwise one lost the perfect bouquet--and probably took advantage of this pause to collect himself, so that he was able to reply in a peculiar drawling tone:

"More important things? Is not that a wine! More important things--the very flower of the Rhine!--on his mind? I should think so: we made a bargain this morning; he is to sell Ziehrendorf for me and I am to buy for him that piece of ground adjoining the works in Berlin. I should think it likely that such a thing as that would be on any one's mind."

I was astonished beyond measure to hear the commerzienrath, whom I knew to be a very cautious man, mention an affair which we had only agreed upon a few hours before, and which I considered a strict business secret, thus openly before all his guests, and especially in the presence of the justizrath, to whom my intervention in the matter was anything but flattering--I was so amazed, I say, at this unbusinesslike, incomprehensible proceeding of the usually so shrewd old man, that I felt a flush of confusion rising hot in my face.

Again silence fell upon the room; the peculiar expression in the countenances of the guests deepened another tone, and now it was Hermine's voice that broke the silence:

"Have I not told you, Emilie, that Herr Hartwig is a frightful aristocrat? He cannot bear to see so old an estate in any other than n.o.ble hands. That sort of thing is not for us plebeians. What does it matter that we have to leave a place that we have grown fond of in these seven years? We must take what we can get and be thankful that we are anywhere at all."

There was a quiver in the tone of her voice, and her eyelids reddened as if she restrained her tears with difficulty; the silence grew more oppressive, and there was no need for the commerzienrath's raising his voice so high as he said:

"So it is: G.o.d's service goes before lord's service, and our George has the notion that he serves G.o.d with every additional farthing that he can make those poor devils of workmen earn; and if he has but few good words for lord's service, woman's service is his downright abomination."

"That is not your device, Arthur!" said the steuerrath, in an encouraging tone.

"_n.o.blesse oblige_," said the Born, with emphasis.