"You are angry with me!"

"What right could I have to be so?" replied Bertram. "I am no relation of yours. I am nothing but a friend; and, as such, I have no right whatever. It is only my duty to give an honest answer if you consult me on a matter of importance. And there is properly no consultation in this case. You are not in need of any advice; you, her parents, are resolved. Nothing is wanting, but the merest trifle--Erna's consent.

And, as that is sure to be given in good time, the whole thing is clearly settled, and we may as well talk of something else."

"No, no!" exclaimed Otto, "nothing is settled; and the matter is by no means clear--clear--not in my mind, anyhow; and Hildegard has not the faintest conception how things really stand. She thinks it is only my want of resolution that ... And because she knows how much I value your judgment--if I could only tell you everything ..."

"But you cannot, and you would be, sorry for it afterwards. Therefore, you had better not try."

"But I must at length tell some one, and there is no one else in the world whom I could say it to. Listen: I ... I ..."

A kind of spasm pa.s.sed over the full, round, good-humoured face; the blue eyes, which he kept rigidly fixed upon his friend, seemed to struggle against rising tears.

"I--I am ruined!"

He had just managed to p.r.o.nounce these words hoa.r.s.ely; then he broke, down and sunk upon a log of wood which was lying by the roadside.

Bertram had, at first to struggle against the terrible notion that his friend had suddenly gone mad. But his look, though one of utter despair, was not that of a madman.

"What is this you say, Otto? Impossible, impossible!" he said, sitting down upon the log by the side of his friend, who seemed bereft of all strength. "Go on, anyhow, that I may judge what it comes to. I am quite convinced--beforehand that it comes to nothing at all. But speak, for goodness sake, speak!"

Otto nodded a.s.sent, and murmured--

"Yes, yes, I will speak. Come to nothing, forsooth! I have seen it coming--for a long time past--for the last four years at least--ever since I started, in addition to all the other things, that confounded sugar refinery. We made it a Company; but I hold all the shares myself now--I could not bear to ruin the poor beggars who, trusting in me, had taken up the rest. This has cost me untold money; and the whole thing was a failure, and the building is ready to be pulled down again--would already have been pulled down if that, again, did not require money. Besides, a thousand acres of my best soil planted with beetroot--food for the pigs now. And yonder is that porcelain factory, year by year a balance on the wrong side; and then the mines--yes, yes, formerly, but not now ..."

There had been one long series of enterprises, each of which had turned out more unsatisfactory, and, in the long run, more ruinous than the other; and with increasing swiftness they had swallowed up ever bigger sums, and had now at length given at least a most severe shock to a very considerable fortune. This much Bertram gathered clearly from the statements of his friend, although he only understood a small part of the technical and mercantile details.

"But how on earth," he exclaimed, "could a quiet, sensible man like yourself ever dream of venturing on this 'inclined plane'? How could you graft one reckless, foolhardy speculation upon another; neglect, ruin those splendid estates, the legacy of your fathers; stake your peace of mind, your happiness? And if it had been a question of yourself only! But your child--your wife ..."

He paused abruptly.

"Poor chap!" he murmured. "I think I understand after all--poor, good chap!"

He was pressing Otto's hand warmly. Their eyes met. His unhappy friend was smiling, and a most melancholy smile it was.

"To be sure, to be sure," he said; "I did not want it cried from the house-tops; I knew you would find the reason. I myself--dear, dear--I would not have cared to increase my gains. I should have been more than satisfied with the estates and the mines, or with the estates alone, if the mines ceased to yield a profit. You know how as a young man I used to be quite ashamed of having so much money, never a farthing of which I had earned, when I saw how my betters had to toil and moil. And I knew too that I was not good enough for her--that it was great condescension on her part to marry me at all--that I must needs ever be in her debt. From the very commencement I let her have her own way--she should never be able to say that I, the _bourgeois_ proprietor's son, was ignorant of what befitted and became a beautiful young lady of high degree. I even--don't laugh at me, man--even tried to procure a patent of n.o.bility, she wished it so very much; and I have made many a sacrifice with that object. This whole, ill-starred porcelain factory, for instance--I had been told that at Court they would like me to establish one, and indeed they buy here what they require, though, to be sure, only for kitchen and servants' hall--and there was many another thing besides. And then she wanted the terraces and the park and the mansion-house restored--in the true style, I think they call it--and she takes delight in all this, trumpery rubbish of dim old mirrors, and shaky old chairs, and worm-eaten old cabinets, and coffee-coloured, pictures, and abominable old pots and pans; and I, great G.o.d! would willingly buy the whole world for her--lay it at her feet--if only she would love me a little in return. But--you see, Charles, it has all been in vain--quite in vain!"

The big man had buried his face in his hands, and was sobbing like a child. Bertram's soul was filled with pity. The wretched weakness of his friend in reference to his beautiful and beloved, but cold, unloving wife, and its mournful consequences--he now understood it all too well not to be ready to pardon--to a certain extent. But that, husband and wife must settle, must bear, among them--only Erna should not be dragged to ruin, should not also be sacrificed to her mother's unbounded selfishness. And perhaps this was the one bright spot in the dark picture which his friend had drawn of his position.

"You have not endeavoured to give the Baron a clear view of your situation?" he asked.

"For goodness sake--no; certainly not," exclaimed Otto, rising in terror from his stooping position. "Anything but that!"

"And yet you will have to do so as soon as he formally asks Erna's hand from you."

"How can I tell him the truth? He would withdraw immediately."

"Otto, are you not ashamed of yourself? And you would really give Erna to such a cur?"

"What am I to do?"

"What you are simply obliged to do as a man of honour, not to say as a father!"

"And he'll talk about it--here, in the town, at Court--and everything, everything depends upon my credit remaining unquestioned, at least a little longer. If the projected railway is made to pa.s.s through here in lieu of through the valley below, it would be done mainly on account of my establishments, my factories, and what not. And in that case I am saved--nay, I must needs grow wealthier than ever I have been. But the ultimate granting of the concession--our local Parliament notwithstanding--rests with the Government; and Lotter, with his divers relations, his well-known influence ..."

He paused, then resumed in a somewhat less confident tone--

"If, therefore, I do not reveal everything to him at present--and, by the by, there is no need for it yet--I am not acting dishonestly, but in everybody's interest. You will grant me this much."

"To be sure," replied Bertram. "I only fear you will not be able to continue this profitable silence for any length of time. For any day it may happen that the young people come to an understanding, and--to-morrow, perhaps, or this very day--they may come and ask for your blessing."

"It would kill me!"

"It would, anyhow, be extremely awkward! Therefore, I beg to make the following proposal to you. I am already authorised by your wife to sound Erna; I now ask you to give me the same commission; and you will tell your wife that you have spoken to me about it. Thus you will both have placed the matter into my hands as it were. Now I shall find Erna either distinctly favourable to your plan, or else distinctly unfavourable, or undecided. In the latter case, I will try to confirm her in that state of mind; and would prove to your wife that to advance with inconsiderate rashness must needs be risking, and, probably, spoiling everything. But even if Erna, really loves the Baron, or, on the other hand, if she is satisfied in her own mind that he is not the man who corresponds to her ideal--all girls create such an ideal for themselves--well, I think I have influence enough with her--or, in case of need, I possess diplomatic talent enough, to get the ultimate decision put off one way or the other. For how long--we shall judge by and by, once you and I are so far agreed."

"My dear boy, I put myself entirely in your hands. I'll not take a step without you. Gracious me--what a lucky thing that you have come! I do not know what would have become of me, and of the whole business."

He shook and pressed both his friend's hands in the excess of his grat.i.tude, looked upon his situation already in a much more hopeful light, turned the conversation again to the new railway and to the stupendous chances which would come to him in case the decision was favourable, and that it would be so, he suddenly a.s.sumed to be probable, nay, certain. He never noticed that Bertram had made the little carriage turn which was waiting for them at the end of the wood, and that now they were driving back the way they had come. The suggested inspection of the factory had only been a pretext for having an undisturbed hour with Bertram.

His friend was now sitting in silence by his side. Otto kept on talking to him, lowering his voice on account of the driver's presence. Bertram hardly heard what he said. He hardly saw, either--or if he saw, it was like in a dream--the golden lights flash down through the top of the giant firs, and play around the brown stems and along the mossy ground; he saw but as in a dream the lovely vistas which opened here and there, giving glimpses of loveliest landscape beauty in the valley far below.

His busy mind was working and modelling away at the part in the family drama which had, after all, been forced upon him, and which he had not dared to decline--for Erna's sake.

VIII.

For Erna's sake! How often he repeated that phrase to himself in the course of the day! He wanted nothing for himself. What, indeed, could he have wanted for himself? Nothing more than a man who should see a child lost, in danger, among a crowd of carriages, and who should bound to the spot and carry the child away to some place of safety; nothing more than a wanderer, who sees a fellow-traveller start upon a road of which he knows of old the insecure state, and who warns the heedless man to take some other road instead. One does so because it is one's duty as a human being; one does so because one's heart urges one to do it, because one cannot help doing it.

Yes, a man acts and speaks in such situations as he would hardly act or speak for his own sake. He is more courageous or more anxious than he would be, if his own weal or woe were at stake. One grows beyond one's self, or else sinks beneath one's own everyday moral level.

"And the latter is meanwhile my case," said Bertram to himself, as he played his part with due zeal, and, as he thought, with great success.

It was a natural consequence, of that part that he lectured Hildegard (after the event), because she had not yesterday taken him at once into her confidence; that he exchanged with his friend Otto looks of the completest accord and understanding; that he used with Lydia--to her evident delight--a tone of mingled melancholy and fun, which appeared half to express and half to hide a deeper emotion; and that with the Baron he completely dropped his calm manner of the day preceding. How else could he form an opinion of the man? And how could he be a faithful counsellor to Erna without having formed an opinion?

So he examined the Baron's portfolio with patient attention, whilst that n.o.bleman turned over the leaves and gave explanations. The collection would have been a priceless treasure if the quality had corresponded with the quant.i.ty. There were sketches from almost every country in Europe; the northern coast of Africa, too--Algiers, Tunis--was largely represented. And then the painter's talent embraced all styles and kinds of painting:--landscape, architecture, still-life, portraiture--nothing had escaped the unwearied brush, nothing had appeared too difficult. On the contrary, there were the most unlikely effects of light and shade, the oddest scenes, the most _risque_ situations, involving the wildest inroads on the laws of perspective and the most reckless foreshortening--and the daring sketcher seemed positively to have revelled in these. And yet Bertram had to confess to himself that a not inconsiderable talent, which, with patient and careful schooling, might have borne beautiful fruit, had been recklessly wasted--and, indeed, generally recklessness did seem to him to be the Baron's leading characteristic. Anyhow, the painter's fluent comments on his own sketches quite corresponded to the reckless style of painting. Everywhere his ideas, good ones and bad ones, and some really original ones, were clothed in the same hurried, flurried, sometimes absurd form, showing a ready, but never a profound insight into human relations, into manners and customs of nations; much, but most desultory reading; extensive, and yet scattered knowledge. The man spoke as he painted, and painted as he played music. Reckless, superficial, inconstant, like his work and his talk, will and must his love be too, thought Bertram.

Could love like that lastingly suffice for Erna? It seemed impossible.

But is there such a word as impossible in connection with the magic world of the human heart? Are not the natures of truly n.o.ble women at times visited by irresistible and undying pa.s.sion for wavering, unstable, yes, even for morally worthless men? Does it not well-nigh seem to have all the stability of a law of nature, that totally opposed characters, all inward resistance notwithstanding, feel drawn to and fascinated by each other?

Was this fatal fascination visible in Erna?

Bertram kept his attention unconsciously fixed on that one decisive point, but without being able to come to any definite result. True, he had to confess to himself that even a still keener observer would have vainly tried his hand at the task. Erna joined to-day even less directly than on the previous day in the general conversation; nay more, he thought he noticed what had not been the case yesterday, or what had at least escaped him then, that her gaze, usually so firm, seemed at times fixed on vacancy, then again appeared directed inward, anyhow was not dwelling on her surroundings--a symptom which by no means pleased the observer, because from it one might surely conclude that there existed a deeper sentiment, one which absorbed her inner life. And this sentiment was not likely to be one of aversion to the Baron, to whom she talked more, in her own calm way, than to anybody else; with whom she played music two or three times during the day; and with whom she played chess after supper in her own grave, attentive manner. Hildegard came and explained all these details to Bertram ...

"Believe me," she said, "I know Erna. Mind, my words of this morning.

She may be long in confessing her preference for any man, but if she were to dislike any one, he would find it out pretty soon."

"I fear that I am experiencing something of the sort," Bertram replied.

"How so?"