"Do not dare to attempt to follow me by even a step." she cried in deepest anger. "Your escort is just as unbearable to me as your presence. How often must I tell you that?"

"Ah, so angry!" cried the Count with a malicious smile. "Well, I shall not have ventured this attack for nothing. I shall at least repay myself with a kiss from those charming, angry lips."

He actually prepared to fulfil his threat, approaching the quickly retreating girl, but at that moment, propelled by an awful blow, he flew to one side and fell full length upon the damp ground, where he remained lying in a very pitiable plight.

Startled at this unexpected and stormy succor, Marietta turned around, and her face, flushed from insult and anger, bore expression of great amazement as she recognized her deliverer, who now stood at her side, looking wrathfully at the form upon the ground, as if it were his highest desire to quite finish him.

"Herr von Eschenhagen--you!"

In the meantime Count Westerburg had struggled painfully to his feet and now drew near his aggressor threateningly.

"How dare you! Who gives you the right----"

"I advise you to remain ten feet away from this young lady,"

interrupted Willibald, placing himself in front of Marietta, "or you will fly off again, and the second blow might not prove as soft as the first."

The Count, a slender, far from powerful man, measured the giant before him, whose fist he had already felt, but one look was enough to convince him that he would come out second best in an encounter.

"You will give me satisfaction--if you are worth it," he hissed in a half-choked voice. "Probably you do not know whom you have before you----"

"An impudent fellow whom one chastises with pleasure," said w.i.l.l.y stolidly. "Please remain standing where you are, or I will do it now.

My name is Willibald von Eschenhagen. I am lord of Burgsdorf, and can be found at the mansion of the Prussian Amba.s.sador if you should have more to tell me---- If you please, mein Fraulein, you may trust yourself unhesitatingly to my protection. I pledge myself that you will not be molested further."

And now something unprecedented, unheard of, happened. Herr von Eschenhagen, without stammering, without showing embarra.s.sment of any kind, offered his arm with a genuinely chivalrous movement to the young lady, and carried her off without concerning himself further about the Count.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

Marietta had accepted the proffered arm without speaking a word until, having reached a considerable distance, she commenced, with a timidity otherwise foreign to her manner: "Herr von Eschenhagen----"

"Mein Fraulein."

"I--I am very grateful for your protection, but the Count--you have insulted him--even with a blow. He will challenge you and you will have to accept it."

"Of course, with the greatest pleasure," said w.i.l.l.y, and his face was beaming as if the prospect gave him unmixed delight.

His awkward, embarra.s.sed manner had suddenly disappeared; he felt himself a hero and deliverer, and enjoyed the new position immensely.

Marietta looked at him in speechless amazement.

"But it is awful that this should happen for my sake!" she commenced again, "and that it should be just you."

"Perhaps that is not agreeable to you," said the young lord, who in his present elated mood took offence at the last remark. "But Fraulein, in such a case one has no choice. Forced by necessity, you had to accept me as protector, even if I did not stand very high in your esteem."

A burning blush spread over Marietta's face at the remembrance of that hour when she had poured out her supreme contempt on the man who now took her part so gallantly.

"I thought only of Toni and her father," she returned in a low voice.

"I am blameless in this matter, but if I should be the cause of your being torn from your fiancee----"

"Toni must accept it then as providential," said w.i.l.l.y, upon whom the mention of his betrothed made little impression. "One can lose his life anywhere, and one must not always expect the worst consequences----Where shall I carry you, Fraulein? To the Parkstra.s.se?

I believe I heard that you wished to go there."

She shook her head quickly.

"No, no! I intended going to Professor Marani, who is teaching me a new role, but I cannot sing now--it is impossible. Let us look for a carriage; we may find one over there. I would like to go home."

Willibald turned his steps at once in the appointed direction, and they walked on silently to the edge of the park, where several cabs were standing.

The young girl stopped here and looked anxiously and entreatingly at her companion.

"Herr von Eschenhagen must it really be? Cannot the matter be smoothed over?"

"Hardly: I have given the Count a heavy blow and called him an impudent fellow, and shall stand to that, of course, if it should come to any explanation; but do not worry about that. The affair will probably be settled with a few scratches by tomorrow or the day after."

"And must I remain two or three days in this anxious uncertainty? Will you not at least send me word about it?"

Willibald looked into the dark, tearful eyes, and with that look there came into his eyes that strange sudden glow as on that day when he heard the voice of the "_singvogelchen_" for the first time.

"If everything pa.s.ses off happily I shall come myself and bring you word," he replied. "May I?"

"Oh, certainly, certainly. But if an accident occurs--if you should fall?"

"Then keep me in better remembrance than heretofore, mein Fraulein,"

said Willibald, earnestly and cordially. "You must have considered me a great coward--oh, do not say anything! You were right. I felt it myself bitterly enough--but it was my mother whom I was accustomed to obey, and who loves me very much. But you shall see now that I know how a man must act when a defenceless girl is being insulted in his presence. I will now erase, if need be, with my blood, that bad hour."

Without giving her time to reply he called one of the waiting cabs, opened the door, and gave the driver the street and number which Marietta had given him. She entered the carriage and stretched out her little hand to him once more. He held it for a moment, then the young girl threw herself back upon the cushion with a stifled sob, and the carriage rolled away.

w.i.l.l.y followed it with his eyes until nothing more could be seen of it, then he drew himself up and said with a kind of grim satisfaction: "Now take care, Herr Count! It will be a real pleasure to me now to fire until sight and hearing leave me."

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

Twilight came on early this bleak November day, and the Adelsberg palace was already lighted when the Prince, returning from a short drive, reached the portal.

"Is Herr Rojanow in his rooms?" he inquired of the servant who hastened up.

"At your service, Your Highness," the man replied, bowing low.

"Order the carriage at nine o'clock. We drive to the ducal palace."

Egon mounted the stairs and entered the apartments of his friend, which adjoined his own on the first floor, and which, like all the rest of the princely house, were furnished with antique splendor.

A lamp burned upon the table of the sitting-room. Hartmut lay stretched upon a lounge in a position indicative of utter weariness and exhaustion.

"Are you resting upon your laurels?" asked the Prince, laughing and drawing near. "I cannot blame you, for you have not had a moment's peace to-day. It is really a rather trying business to be a new rising star in the poetical firmament; nerve is required for it. The people actually fight each other for the honor of being allowed to tell you flatteries. You have held a grand reception today."