"_Mon c[oe]ur aux dames!_" said Arthur, laying his delicate hand on his heart and bowing to his cousin.

The justizrath and his ladies said nothing, contenting themselves with exchanging significant looks to the effect that this was a family affair, and they have better avoid meddling in it.

Again ensued an embarra.s.sing pause, which was broken, just as the situation seemed to have reached a climax, by William Kluckhuhn using his pocket-handkerchief with an energy altogether unbecoming in a decorous serving-man, even in moments of the most lively concern.

Fraulein Duff, who had held her thin hands spasmodically clasped over her breast during the last words of the Commerzienrath with the pale resignation of one whose only remaining hope is in a better hereafter, broke out into a hysterical weeping, and Hermine suddenly rising and pressing her handkerchief to her cheeks and forehead, begged that the company would excuse her if her ill-humor had annoyed them, but that her headache was so violent that she must retire to her room.

I do not believe that any one of those present believed in this headache, but this of course did not hinder the two Eleonoras from springing from their chairs, and approaching the fair sufferer on either side, in the intent to compose a touching group. But Hermine had already seized the arm of her sobbing governess, and left the room with a painful smile upon her lips, which seemed intended for all the company except myself.

Except myself, over whom her look had pa.s.sed as if my chair were empty, and the rest of the company seemed to entertain the same opinion. No one had a word or look for me, and I have never forgotten it of William Kluckhuhn that at this fateful moment he had the hardihood to step behind my chair, and in a suppressed tone to ask:

"Will the Herr Engineer take another gla.s.s of hock?"

I took the gla.s.s, and sipped it slowly with the air of a connoisseur, but I cannot say that I was able to do justice to the n.o.ble vintage.

With all the trouble I took to appear quite at my ease, I was greatly pained and disconcerted. It is an extremely disagreeable thing to be singled out in this way by a young lady before an entire company.

Happily my strength was not tasked too hardly. The company rose from table and hastily separated; I went out into the grounds to think it all over in the soothing companionship of a cigar.

One thing was at once perfectly intelligible: the behavior of the company at this incident. They had let me drop at the instant they thought they saw that my game was lost. I knew well that Arthur's parents had never given up the hope that he would one day marry his cousin, and that their fulsome flatteries and Arthur's deceitful show of friendship were only meant to cloak their real aim, and perhaps to obtain some influence over me, as they probably feared that open enmity would only make their chance worse.

As for the justizrath and the two Eleonoras, they merely swam with the stream. They and the others--the conduct of all was explicable enough; but the commerzienrath? Did it not look as if he had intentionally provoked this scene at table, or at least offered the opportunity? He was usually adroit enough in giving another turn to the conversation when it did not please him. And if he really needed my a.s.sistance in effecting the sale, why did he mention the matter to Hermine now when all was still unsettled? Why, when he knew how averse she was from the project, mention me to her as its originator or at all events its chief promoter? Did he simply use me to screen himself? Such a man[oe]uvre was exactly consistent with his character; he had a way of shifting burdens that were uncomfortable for him, to the shoulders of others. Or was this not all? Had the cunning old man tried his cuttle-fish stratagem again, and hidden himself in a cloud of a.s.sumed carelessness?

He had noticed nothing, not he, of all that was going on around him, and in which he was so much concerned, and thus quite innocently, accidentally indeed, he placed "his young friend" in a quite untenable position towards his pretty pa.s.sionate daughter.

The blood rose hot to my brow as I came to this conclusion, and a new feeling rose within me and obtained a complete mastery of me. It had always been an easy thing for me to forgive heartily those who had injured me; so easy indeed that I often called myself a weakling, a man with neither heart nor gall; why then was that which I usually found so easy, so difficult for me now? Why did every oblique glance that had been directed at me across the table, the neglect, the indifference which had been suddenly exhibited, now all recur even in their minutest details to my memory? And why did I feel as if I should suffocate at that which I had hitherto borne with such apparent equanimity? I had suddenly struck a new vein in my own nature, a vein from which a bitter, black, poisonous stream flowed into the current of my healthy blood. I felt as an actual physical change what was really only a change in my disposition; the first violent emotion of ambition; the hot desire for personal revenge; the humiliation, the disgrace, if this were baffled; the desperate final resolution to emerge from the contest as victor, to attain my aim in spite of all and everything.

My aim! What was it then? The same which I had in view when I came here, or another? Or this and that both at once? Well might I at this moment have heard the warning voice of that stern wisdom which says that we cannot serve G.o.d and Mammon.

I had taken my seat upon a bench which stood in a thick copse of bushes. It was a quiet secret nook. The birds twittered pleasantly, a gentle breeze blowing over the garden brought sweet odors on its soft pinions, and a warm reviving sun beamed from the clear blue sky. The spot was so sweet and the hour so lovely that I had to yield to its soft solicitations, resist them as I might. My blood began to flow more calmly: I commenced to take an interest in a pair of finches that had just set up housekeeping in a knot-hole of a tree, recently transplanted here from the Rossow park, and were incessantly hurrying in and out of their little door. It was a peaceful pretty picture; the little creatures were in such a hurry, and were so unwearyingly busy, and evidently out of mere love--the world after all was not so wretched a place as it had just seemed to me.

With these thoughts flitting through my mind, I must have closed my eyes and fallen asleep; for I saw the bushes in front of me, and behind which ran a walk, bend apart, and a face appear between them; a lovely girlish face upon which the sunbeams and shadows of the leaves were playing, and partly from this, and partly because I was dreaming, I could not see clearly enough to decide if the light in the eye was anger or love. When at last I opened my eyes fairly, I could see the place in the bushes, but the sweet face was no longer there, but at the same moment I heard ringing laughter with shouts and the cracking of a whip, and mingled with the rest, piteous cries as of some one entreating, then suddenly a loud shriek of terror, which caused me to spring from the bench and hurry to the spot.

It was a circular s.p.a.ce surrounded with shrubbery, which was used as a race-course and which I had myself used as a riding-school several times during my stay here as I endeavored to improve my imperfect horsemanship under the guidance of the coachman, Anthony, an old cavalryman. My lessons had been taken secretly in the very early morning, because I knew that Hermine, who was pa.s.sionately fond of riding, was in the habit of practising here for an hour or two in the forenoon. Recently Anthony had told me that Fraulein Duff was also taking lessons, at the request of her young lady, who had suddenly taken into her head to have in her expeditions and visits in the neighborhood, another escort beside her groom, whom she frequently dispensed with anyhow. The thing appeared to me absolutely incredible, although old Anthony, who had nothing of the quiz about him, a.s.sured me with the most serious face that it was a literal fact; now I was to have my doubts removed by the evidence of my own eyesight.

In the middle of the track stood Arthur, who kept cracking a long whip incessantly, Hermine, who was laughing in great amus.e.m.e.nt, the two Eleonoras, in virginal white, clinging to each other as usual, and Anthony, who plainly hesitated whether to obey Arthur's repeated orders to keep away, or yield to the piteous supplications of Fraulein Duff, and help that unhappy lady off the horse. It seemed that for the first time they had let go the halter-rein, and the unskilful and excessively timid rider had been seized with sudden panic. In her desperation she had clasped both arms around the neck of the horse, a small s.h.a.ggy-maned animal not much larger than a pony, who on his part plunged, kicked, and did his best to throw her entirely out of the saddle, as she was already half out of it. The spectacle was certainly indescribably ludicrous, but I could not bear to see for an instant my good friend in this predicament without coming to her a.s.sistance, and in a moment I had sprung to her side, caught the horse's head, and, as she held out her arms to me, lifted her from the saddle. I wished to place her gently on the ground, but in vain did I whisper to her to control herself and not make a scene. As she had previously clung to the horse's neck, so she now clung to mine, and seemed to find the greatest pleasure in swooning in my arms and upon my breast. If a situation of this sort under some circ.u.mstances is not dest.i.tute of charms for the cavalier, it a.s.sumes another character when his fair burden has fully reached those years when she can stand alone, and becomes perfectly intolerable when the spectators instead of commiserating him and hastening to his relief, only move their hands to applaud like mad, and break into inextinguishable laughter.

At least this was what Hermine and Arthur did, while of the two Eleonoras the second only looked at the first to see if she might laugh.

"Duffy, Duffy," cried Hermine, "I have always told you to beware of him!"

"Fraulein Duff," exclaimed Arthur, "do you want to tighten the curb-chain?"

"May I?" signalled the second Eleonora more urgently, and the first replied in the same way, "Laugh, thou innocent cherub!" and herself set the example.

"Come, let us leave them alone; they must have a great deal to say to each other," said Hermine, and hurried off amid peals of laughter, and the rest followed, all laughing like mad, even to the stolid old Anthony, who led away the horse, joyously whinnying, which was probably his way of joining in the general hilarity. The next instant I was standing alone with my fair burthen in my arms, mortified, offended, furious, as I had never been before, so that if a river had chanced to be at hand, I believe I would have pitched the poor Fraulein into it without a moment's hesitation. Happily the temptation was not presented to me, and as the laughter of the departing company grew fainter in the distance, Fraulein Duff recovered consciousness, and unclasping her arms from my neck, murmured: "Richard, you are my preserver!"

Richard was very far from being in the mood to fall in with the sentimentalities of the poor governess, and indeed had at this moment nothing like a lion-heart in his breast, but rather a little, spiteful, vindictive heart; so he let his poor charge slide very unceremoniously to the ground, and stood before her with gloomy brows and probably wrathful looks, for she clasped her hands as if frightened and whispered:

"Richard, for heaven's sake grow not desperate: however clouds obscure the sky, the sun still beams above!"

"Fraulein Duff," I said, "I must confess that at this moment I am in no temper for jesting, far less becoming the jest of others. You will therefore excuse me if I bid you good day."

I sought to extricate my hand from hers, in which I succeeded with some difficulty. But I had scarcely taken three steps when I heard such a lamentable crying and sobbing behind me that I could not help turning round. And there she stood in her green riding-habit, the skirt of which was wound round her feet like a serpent, and upon her pale yellow dishevelled locks a tall hat crushed out of shape, with a green veil, the strings of which were hanging over her face instead of behind.

"Dear, good Fraulein Duff!" I said remorsefully. "Come! I know you meant nothing but kindness." And I drew her arm in mine, and led her, still softly weeping, away from the place of terror, trying with friendly words to comfort her, until we reached the bench upon which I had been sitting, and where I compelled her to sit down, as she was completely overcome. Thus we sat awhile side by side, I staring gloomily at the sand, and she sobbing more and more faintly, until at last she lifted her tearful eyes to me and said:

"How can I requite your kindness, faithful n.o.ble friend?"

"By never alluding to it," I answered; "by never by a single word reminding me of this ridiculous scene; which, however, I swear, shall be the last in the wretched comedy which I have let them play with me here so long."

"Comedy?" said Fraulein Duff, pressing her handkerchief to her eyes with one hand, while with the other she held me fast, as I had risen to my feet--"You need calm, dear Carl--your blood is in a tumult--sit here by me--away with these black fever-phantasies!"

I had to laugh, angry as I was, and took my seat again by her side.

"O!" cried Fraulein Duff, "you are joyous and good, and still you understand human nature; and can you really be deceived in this maiden soul which lies before me as clear and transparent as yonder heaven;--yes as yonder heaven," she repeated, raising her arms poetically aloft where in all the sunny clearness of a spring afternoon, the bluest of skies peeped through the thick blossoming branches to our secluded nook.

"How can any one know that which under the best circ.u.mstances does not know itself?" I returned.

"You err, my friend," replied the governess. "You take the timid flutterings of this chaste virgin soul for attempts at flight; and yet it would only fly to you, the coy birdling, to you and you alone!"

"In the name of heaven and all the blessed saints, Fraulein Duff, hush! You drive me out of my senses, talking in that way!" I cried, now effectually springing up, and pacing up and down as if demented, which indeed I was; "I will hear nothing more of it and believe nothing more of it, not even if I hear it from her own lips!"

"You will so hear it," said Fraulein Duff.

I broke into derisive laughter.

"You will," she repeated; "only patience, Richard; only patience!"

"To the devil with patience!" I exclaimed.

"What shall be the wager, prince?" said the governess with a sly smile, lifting the thin forefinger of her transparent hand. "I summon old stories back to your heart; old stories. Don't I remember as if it were but yesterday, how she cried when she was but an eight-year-old child, and would not be comforted, when she heard that they had put in prison the handsome tall youth who always swung her so high? how she named all her dolls George, and used to put them in the parrot's cage and say that was her lover who was now in prison, and Poll was the jailor and wanted to snap off her lover's head with his crooked beak? And when I--for, my friend, a faithful educator of youth must be like the good gardener who grafts roses upon the th.o.r.n.y stock--when I tried to subst.i.tute for this fantastic form of childish grief, a more poetical one; when I told her of Richard, the Lion-hearted, the renowned in song and legend, and of Blondel the faithful singer, then she saw her ideal in this form alone, and wandered about, her cithern in her hand, until she found him she sought. Chance, or rather I must say the G.o.d of love so ordained it that she really saw him in prison, paler than of yore, it is true, but ever fair and stately, and thus has she carried his image in her heart for six, seven years, without being for one moment unfaithful to her Richard. You laugh incredulously, O my friend! You know not how adamantine is the soul of a true woman. Seven years! that seems to you an eternity. My friend, I know hearts that have loved--loved without hope--for five-and-thirty years!"

And the good Fraulein pressed her handkerchief to her eyes and sobbed aloud, but mastered her emotion presently and went on:

"But that is nought to the purpose now; I will not burthen your good heart, at this moment when its own destiny is pressing so heavily upon it, with the tragedy of another life which has been darkened with perpetual gloom by such a misunderstanding as now drifts over the horizon of yours like a pa.s.sing cloud; nor is 'misunderstanding' the right word in your case: you understand each other as do the two birds there"--and Fraulein Duff pointed to the bush where the pair of finches were carrying on their courtship--"only you are human creatures with human sensitiveness and human pride. Alas, and she is not at all what she seems to be! How has she humbled herself to her love in her hours of solitude! How often has she kneeled before me, her face buried in my lap, and said that her beloved was high above her like a star, and that she could never hope to be worthy of one so strong, so brave, so n.o.ble.

O my friend, she is proud of you! With what enthusiasm was she not filled when dear Fraulein Paula wrote her how you had acted in that night of the storm, and again 'there is no one like him, no one!' she exclaimed, when you were our preserver on the steamer last autumn. Yes, my friend, you are her religion; and she confesses you before all men, only not before you. Was she not fixed upon having her Richard in a picture at least, whatever her heartless father might say? Has she not adored this picture as if it were the image of a saint, and even fitted up her room in oriental style, that its surroundings might harmonize with it? The same room you now occupy: no other was good enough for her Richard; and her Richard must have it, let people shake their heads as they might, or her tyrannical father bawl in his hateful way, and I myself--I confess it--mildly remonstrate. My friend, to this--to such a step which would be ludicrous were it not sublime--belong courage, inspiration, all the intensest conviction of a great ideal love. The world delights to darken all that's bright--if that be a poet's word it is an eternal truth, and believe me, she herself has had her martyrdom to bear; it is no pigmy's task to maintain one's self against such a father. I will say no evil of him; I will say nothing of him, for where should I begin and where end? And yet she has achieved the impossible: the tiger fawns at the feet of the lamb."

"I learned that to-day," I replied.

"Remind me not," cried Fraulein Duff, "of that terrible hour, which was yet only a further proof of her love. O smile not so sardonically! Has it not been long her cherished hope, here, at this place which is so dear to her, some day to realize with her Richard her dream of love?

And now to hear that she shall be driven from this paradise, and that the angel with the sword is none other than the lord of the paradise himself!"

"But," I cried, "am I the one who drives her from it? How can she make me responsible for a thing that she knows to be the cherished scheme and urgent wish of her father, who probably intentionally provoked the scene at the table to-day?"

"Very possibly," replied Fraulein Duff. "Who can fathom the wiles of this labyrinthine old man? Yes, if I rightly remember, she hinted at something of the sort when we were alone in her room, and she relieved her o'erburthened heart in a flood of tears."

"From what we have just seen, the relief appears to have been pretty effectual," I said.

"My friend," replied the governess, "he jests at scars who never felt a wound. Will you be less patient than I, who for all the wayward humors of the lovesick child have only a tear of pity in a smiling eye?"