"Proposed? To me?"

A scornful smile played round her exquisite lips.

"I beg your pardon, dear Erna. He was so remarkably a.s.siduous in his attentions to you yesterday. You admit yourself that you have been kinder to him than now you care to have been, and he strikes me as being one of those men who grasp the whole hand the moment you hold out your little finger to them. And moreover, I know that your parents encourage him much, and he is surely aware of that too. Thus my question was not wholly groundless; still, I beg your pardon."

"And indeed you need it in this case, Uncle Bertram. Or, have I perhaps behaved so childishly that even a clever man like you could deem such a thing possible?"

"No, no; pray, try to forget what I said without thinking, or take it for a proof that I was right, that I am neither so good nor so clever as you thought."

The words sounded diffident, almost submissive, but his heart was swelling with proud delight, and the songsters perched above in the shady recesses of the big plantain tree seemed to have been silent till now, and to be then commencing all at once to twitter and sing and make sweetest melody; and from the terraces beneath there was wafted up to them in fragrant cloudlets the perfume of carnation and mignonette.

What a beautiful, divinely beautiful morning it was!

"Henceforth," said Erna, "we will be open to each other, and then such misunderstandings will not occur again. This one, truly, should make me blush. The Baron is the very last man in whom I could take the very slightest interest. I find nearly everything he says stupid and silly, and if a fairly good idea turns up, as it does every now and then, it is impossible to enjoy it, for the question is sure to obtrude itself: 'What nonsense will he talk next?' I am only now making his acquaintance; he, it is true, has been often here before, but in my absence; and in town, when he came, as he sometimes did, to see Aunt Lydia, I always avoided having to meet him."

"You have met few young men yet?"

"And those few have not made me anxious to meet any more."

"This sounds very hard; but, to say the truth, you are not the first girl whom I have heard talk like this."

"My only wonder is that all do not talk, or, at least, think like this.

My own idea is, that men are naturally selfish, frivolous, and vain, and only become with advancing years good, and n.o.ble, and amiable, and this applies only to the few exceptions; for I suppose the bulk remain as they were."

"Are you serious?"

"Perfectly. And that is why, the night before last, I could not agree with you at all when you a.s.serted that a young girl could not love a much older man, or was at least committing an act of folly if she did so, which, to her sorrow, she was bound to realise sooner or later, and therefore the sooner the better. Nor is it at all this consideration which makes Hilarie change, and which throws her into the arms of that youth who is behaving so childishly and insanely, that Flavio;--there is quite a different reason for it."

"Then you know the novelette?"

"No; I only read it now; and I had to hunt a long time for it, until I found it in the _Wanderjahre_. The book is lying there. And now I also understand the 'one element,' which you said the night before last that Gothe had excluded, or had not made use of--which is the right expression in this case?--because otherwise the comedy would have been turned into a tragedy."

"And this 'one element,' what is it?"

"The fact that her uncle is not in love with her at all. Was not that it?"

"To be sure. I only wonder at your having found it out."

"And my only wonder is that Hilarie did not discover it sooner. She must have been very blind not to have seen that her uncle returns--or rather does not return--her love from sheer kindliness of disposition; that at best his _penchant_ is but the faintest reflex of her pa.s.sionate love. Look at this pa.s.sage: 'You are making me the happiest man beneath the sun! Exclaiming this, he fell at her feet.' How feeble, how strained! And it contents her, makes her happy. I should have been ashamed of the whole business."

"You must make some allowance for the spirit of the time, for the manner and expression of the period; in that case, these things do not look or sound quite as bad. But now for the other side of the medal: You hold that Hilarie did truly love her uncle, and would have remained faithful to her love, in spite of any number of Flavios, if her pa.s.sion had been returned?"

"Most certainly!"

"Well, be it so. He loves, loves pa.s.sionately. Enter Flavio, loving, loving pa.s.sionately, too. The father perceives it. He sees that his own love would seal the doom of the son whom he loves. Moreover, he is sure--if he is not a conceited fool, but a man of heart and head, he must be sure--that Hilarie would undoubtedly, return his son's pa.s.sion, if he, the father, the uncle, did not unfortunately stand between them; that the girl's love for the young man, and _vice versa_, is the only natural--that means, the only right thing; that therefore Hilarie cannot truly love him; that her love rather, if it be not absolutely unnatural, is anyhow an error, an aberration, from which she shall and must turn. Given these things, am I wrong in a.s.serting that then, indeed, the comedy changes to tragedy--a tragedy the secret and silent stage of which, I admit, will be solely ... the elderly man's heart? Do you not agree with me?"

"I must, I think; if I have first granted your suppositions and a.s.sumptions, particularly this: that a girl's love for a man much older than herself must needs in every case be an error, an aberration. But then, again, I do not see why the elderly man's love for the girl does not also tend to self-deception, to a fact which he, being more far-sighted, clever, experienced; is bound to realise all the sooner.

And then, where is your tragedy?"

Once more the great eyes flashed, the dainty lips quivered, an angry cloud lay on her brow. There was a wild voice in his heart crying: "Where?--here, here--for I love, I love thee! and it is impossible that into thy maiden heart, there should ever fall one spark of the wild conflagration raging here." But he succeeded this time, too, in subduing the tumult in his heart, and he said smilingly--

"I hoped, nay, I knew that you would make this objection, which is absolutely correct, and which helps the Master to regain that absolute sovereignty and undeviating correctness in matters of the heart in which I, wantonly, tried to argue Gothe was deficient. Of course, so the matter stands, turn and twist it as you will--Hilarie's love is an illusion; or, more correctly, it is a foreshadowing of that true and genuine pa.s.sion which she will feel one day. The Major's love is a reminiscence of what his heart once, in the bygone days of his far-away youth, was glowing with, and what it never again will glow with now.

Anything of a warmer feeling that haply still survives, may be sufficient for a sensible, reasonable marriage, with the clever widow, in whose sentiments towards him again reminiscence acts the part of a kindly mediator, and ... but surely ... why, they are back already!

Shall we go and meet them?"

From the verandah Lotter's loud voice was heard. Lydia, too, was calling out; she was calling Erna. Bertram had risen, glad of the interruption; he felt his strength very nearly exhausted. He was resting his hand on the back of her chair, lest Erna, if they shook hands, should feel how his hand trembled. But Erna was gazing straight before her with a very gloomy expression of countenance.

"I should like to finish my letter first," she said.

"Then I will disturb you no longer."

He had gone; had gone without offering her his hand. Erna sat for a while without looking up; then she re-opened her blotting-book, and read the last page she had written:--

"I see him always, absent or present; I see his n.o.ble, pale countenance, the deep, thoughtful eyes, that mouth which can jest so delicately, and which yet (for me) quivers so often in sorrow for a wasted life, a lost happiness. For me! The others never see it; how should they? To them he is the cold-hearted egotist, the bitter jester, who believes in nothing, least of all in love. To be sure--once betrayed as he has been--alas! Agatha, that is the very thing which draws me irresistibly to him. I can now gaze deep, deep into his n.o.ble heart, can feel all the pangs that have torn it, and must be tearing it again now in the presence of the viper who--oh, I do hate her! ... And he manages to be quite friendly in his demeanour to her, because I asked him to, before I knew all the circ.u.mstances. But he shall do so no longer. I cannot bear it, when he turns his good, truthful eyes to me, as though he would ask: 'Is it right thus?' No, it is wrong, a thousand times wrong! But is it not wrong, too, that I should be allowed to read in his heart, and he not in mine? Shall I tell him ...

all? It is ever on my lips, but then ... no. I should not be ashamed in his presence, he is so kind, and he would understand me! Resting on his protecting arm he would let me shed the last of those hot, angry tears, which will yet persist in sometimes rising to my eyes, and which I brush away indignantly; and I would gratefully accept his mercy, but on one condition only, that I may go on resting on that arm, that he would permit me to love, to serve him, to-day and for ever, as his friend, his daughter, his slave! ... Shall I tell him?"

Erna gave a bitter smile, and took the sheet of paper in both her hands in order to tear it in pieces. Then she laid it down again, and seized her pen once more.

"She who has written this is a conceited little fool, and deserves exemplary punishment for her conceit, and the said punishment is to consist in her sending these lines to her granny, in order to receive by return of post the requisite scolding, even if granny, and this is an urgently repeated request, is coming here the day after to-morrow.

For between granny and me there shall not be said one word on this subject, and even less about the other thing and the other one; and now, dearest granny ..."

"Ah, there is Miss Erna!" exclaimed the Baron, issuing with Lydia from the terrace walk.

"We have been looking everywhere for you," said Lydia. "Heavens! how the child has flushed and heated herself over her writing! To Agatha, of course!"

"Ah, if one could read the letter!" exclaimed the Baron.

"There is nothing about you in it, I can give you that a.s.surance, if it will set your mind at ease," said Erna, closing her blotting-book with the unfinished letter in it, and rising.

X.

"Have you availed, yourself of the opportunity to talk to Erna?"

Hildegard asked Bertram as soon as they were alone.

Bertram had expected this question, and had sought and found time to prepare his answer to it. His first impulse has been to taste the full delights of triumph, and to a.s.sure Hildegard, in strict accordance with the actual truth, that the Baron need never expect to gain Erna's affection. But then he considered that so brusque a revelation, would, without the slightest doubt, cause the proud lady to burst forth into a tempest of indignation, would bring Erna into a disagreeable position, and possibly involve her in extremely awkward scenes. Her feeble father would be no support to her whatever--on the contrary, he wished the decision to be put off as long as possible. And, lastly, he saw now quite clearly that Hildegard's pressing invitation to make a lengthened stay had had the very definite aim to secure in him, as in a very influential friend, an ally in the execution of her plans. Now he had failed in his diplomatic mission, and though they would not openly deprive him of his confidential position, they would very surely not consult him again. Future events would then occur behind his back, and the sooner he went away the better for them. And was he to go now? He felt as though he could as readily bid farewell to life and light.

And so his answer came to be nothing but an adroit evasion. He had, he said, done his best, and Erna had met him in the heartiest and most confiding manner. But on this very ground he considered himself justified in stating that there was at present no trace of any definite _penchant_ for the Baron on Erna's part, and that he could only advise them all to possess their souls in patience, to bide their time, and to hope for the best from the gradual, but all the more sure, influence of daily intercourse.

The apparent genuineness of conviction with which all this was expressed deceived Hildegard completely. Her a.s.sumption that Erna took a special interest in the Baron was chiefly founded on Lydia's a.s.sertions, and Lydia, poor soul, was for ever weaving matrimonial projects, was much addicted to exaggeration, and to the making of molehills into mountains, and would, in this particular case, to get into Hildegard's good graces and maintain herself there, amply confirm anything she might be desirous of hearing. Now, when Hildegard was for the moment looking at things through friend Bertram's clearer and, as she thought, perfectly unprejudiced eyes, she was bound to admit the justice of his observations; indeed, in Erna's manner to the Baron there was very little indication of anything like a warmer sentiment, so little in fact, that the varying ways in which she treated him might almost seem matters of congratulation. Bertram asked himself why Hildegard did not give up a project which looked so very unlike fulfilment, since Erna, in all the charm of her young beauty, would a.s.suredly have no lack of suitors, while her mother, not having the slightest suspicion of her husband's awkward financial situation, must needs, as indeed she did in her matrimonial plans in reference to Erna, reckon wealth among the attractions. There seemed to be something self-contradictory here, anyhow it was pa.s.sing strange; and yet, as he went on meditating, he thought he had found the key to the enigma. Fair Hildegard herself was most pleasantly impressed by the Baron's striking appearance and confident manner, and was much flattered by the homage he paid to her beauty, her cleverness, her kindness, a homage to which, he gave even in company a very perceptible, and in their not infrequent _tete-a-tetes_ probably even a more emphatic expression. And then the circ.u.mstance which, by the by, the Baron by no means concealed, that, to use his own words, he was as poor as a church mouse, she looked upon as a distinct point in his favour.

"Herein," she said to Bertram, "I see the finger of a just and compensating Fate. I know, my friend, that you are too wise and enlightened not to pardon an aristocratic fancy of mine, namely, that it is best if the aristocracy marry among themselves, and the _bourgeoisie_, for whom I have the greatest respect, also among themselves. Well, I, being a very poor lady with a long pedigree--for, indeed, the traditions of our family are reckoned by centuries--have had to break with these traditions, and was in this way the first to contract a _bourgeois_ alliance. I do not complain of my lot; it was my lot, and there's an end of it; but I have never ceased to pray to G.o.d that my only daughter might be granted a different fate. And if a family, which is still older than mine, is enabled to resume its rightful position in the world, I really do not know what better I could wish, a.s.suming always that Erna, as would doubtless be the case, gets a husband who loves her, and who--not to reckon his little cavalier's foibles, in reference to which a wise woman will be judiciously blind, knowing that this kind of thing is sure to stop of its own accord--is in every way worthy of her love."

"And whom," added Bertram mentally, "I hope to bring as completely under my control as my husband."

He was convinced that this thought was the leading one in the calculations of the selfish lady, in spite of the great care with which she endeavoured to avoid even the faintest appearance of any egotistic motive. Even as she was fond of representing her life as one long chain of sacrifices made by her on behalf of others, so she would now appear prepared to give up her own comfort for Erna's sake. Of course, she explained, it would not be possible to leave the poor child alone in town, among indifferent strangers; and she and Otto must in consequence make up their minds to spend the winter there in future. This, to be sure, would necessitate the purchase of a house of their own in town; but the question of expense was not to be taken into consideration where the happiness of their child was concerned; and, by a lucky accident, there happened to be for sale, and at quite a reasonable price, a newly-erected villa close to the Park, surrounded by a pretty garden, and roomy enough to enable them all, parents and children, to live comfortably together. And it would be quite feasible and not very expensive either, to build a studio for the Baron, she added.

Perhaps Bertram would not mind driving to town with Otto, to look at the house? When? Why not to-day? Otto, as usual, could not make up his mind, although it would be an excellent investment, even supposing--supposing--but no, that case was not likely to occur, the momentary, somewhat unfavourable, aspect of things notwithstanding.