Chapter 6

The little mountain of Hochberg rose about half way between Fürstenstein and Rodeck. It was celebrated, and justly, for the fine and extensive view which could be obtained from its highest point. An ancient stone tower, all that now remained of a castle long since fallen into decay, stood upon the extreme summit.

A few peasants, more zealous than their neighbors, had built a little inn or house of rest and refreshment at its base. They made a pretense of keeping the mountain roads in order, and demanded a fair toll from the stray tourist who came to climb the winding tower stairs.

Strangers came but seldom, however, into this wild, unknown mountain region. In the autumn especially, visitors were few and far between. This bright, warm September day had, however, proved seductive. Two gentlemen on horseback, attended by a groom, had dismounted at the door and gone up into the little tower, and they had been followed, a half hour later, by some guests from the neighborhood, who had driven up the mountain-side in a light carriage.

The gentlemen were now standing on a little stone platform of the tower, and one of them was talking eagerly and excitedly as he called his companion's attention to certain newly-discovered beauties in the landscape. "Yes, our Hochberg is celebrated, there's no doubt of that," he said finally. "I felt I must show it to you, Hartmut. Do you not think the view across this far green ocean of forest is unparalleled?"

Hartmut did not answer. He seemed to be searching for some particular place through his field glass.

"In which direction does Fürstenstein lie? Ah, I see, over yonder. It seems to be an immense old building."

"Yes, the castle is well worth seeing," said Prince Adelsberg. "You were quite right, though, day before yesterday, to refuse to accompany me there. The visit worried me to death."

"Indeed! You spoke very enthusiastically of the head forester to me."

"Yes, I always enjoy a chat with him, but he had gone driving, worse luck, and only returned just as I was leaving. His son is not at Fürstenstein either, he's at college studying forestry, and so I was entertained by the daughter of the house, Fräulein Antonie von Schönau. I had a weary hour, I can assure you. A word every five minutes, and a minute getting that one out. She's a fine housewife, I fancy, with no brains for anything beyond. It was up hill work talking to her, and no mistake; then I had the honor of meeting her lover. A genuine, unsophisticated country squire, with a very energetic mother, who evidently has both him and her future daughter-in-law well under her control. Oh, we had a highly intellectual conversation, which ended in their asking my advice about the culture of turnips--I'm so well up in turnips, you know. Just then, happily, the head forester and his brother-in-law, Baron Wallmoden, returned."

Rojanow still held the field glass to his eyes, and was seemingly indifferent to his friend's gossip. Now he said in a questioning tone, "Wallmoden?"

"The new Prussian ambassador to our court. A genuine diplomatist, too, if I may judge from appearances; aristocratic, cold, dignified and reserved to the last degree, but good form, very good form. His wife, the baroness, was not visible, but I bore her absence with resignation, for he's a white-haired elderly man, and I doubt not his wife's of the same stripe."

Hartmut's lip curled as he took the glass down from his eyes. He had not mentioned his meeting with Frau von Wallmoden. Why not forget the very name as soon as possible?

"Our romantic loneliness will soon end, Herr von Schönau tells me," continued Egon. "The whole court is coming to Fürstenstein for the hunting season, and I can count on a visit from the duke. He'll come over to Rodeck as soon as he arrives. I'm not overjoyed, I can tell you, for my respected uncle will preach at me about my morals in a way poor Stadinger never thought of doing, and I'll have to stand it, too. At any rate Hartmut, I can take this opportunity to present you."

"If you think it necessary, and the etiquette of the court permits."

"Bah! The etiquette won't be so strictly observed here, and besides the Rojanows belong to one of the Bojarin families of your country."

"Certainly."

"Well then, there's nothing to prevent your being presented. I am very anxious to have the duke meet you, then I'll tell him about your 'Arivana,' and as soon as he hears your play, he'll have it put on the court stage. I've no question of it."

The words conveyed the deep, almost passionate admiration which the prince had for his friend. The latter only shrugged his shoulders as he replied carelessly:

"That is possible, if you intercede for me, but I do not want to owe my success to any man's efforts in my behalf. I am no poet of repute; I scarcely know whether I am a poet at all or not, and if my work cannot make its own way I shall not force it on the world."

"You'll be obstinate enough to let a fine opportunity slip, that's like you. Have you no ambition?"

"Only too much, I fear; perhaps that's the origin of what you call my obstinacy. I have never been able to subordinate myself and conform to the rules of every day life, and as to the restrictions and trammels of your German courts, I could not adjust myself to them."

"Who told you you would have to adjust yourself to them?" questioned Egon laughingly. "You will be flattered and spoiled there, as everywhere else, for you will appear in the heavens like a meteor and no one ever requires stars of that nature to follow a prescribed orbit. Moreover you will be both a guest and a foreigner; and as such will occupy an exceptional position. When in addition to that, the poet's halo shines round your head--"

"You will have found means to bind me to your country, you think?" interjected Hartmut.

"Well yes, I certainly have not supposed that I, myself, possessed the power to attach to us permanently so wild and restless a spirit. But the rising fame of a poet is a bond which is not so easily broken. This very morning I took an oath to keep you here at any cost."

Rojanow gave him a surprised, searching look. "Why this morning?"

"Ah, that's my secret," said Egon mischievously. "But here comes some one to join us. I hear steps on the stairs."

Yes, there were steps coming up the old stone stairway, and a second later the bearded face of the old watchman peered out at the men on the platform.

"Please be careful, my lady," he was saying. "The last few steps are very steep; now here we are on the platform." He held out his hand to assist the lady, who was following him closely, but she paid no heed to his offer and stepped lightly out on the little stone balcony.

"What a lovely girl," whispered Prince Adelsberg to his friend; but Hartmut, instead of answering, was making a deep and formal bow to the lady, who could not conceal a look of surprise when she saw him.

"Ah, Herr Rojanow, you here?"

"I am admiring the fine views from Hochberg of which you, madame, have heard also, apparently."

The prince's face bore a surprised look when he heard Hartmut address this lovely girl as madame, and saw that she knew him. He came forward immediately, in order that he might share his friend's acquaintance, so Hartmut was constrained to introduce Prince Adelsberg to the Baroness von Wallmoden; he made a passing allusion to the meeting in the wood, for the young wife was wrapped in her mantle of icy indifference. It was scarcely necessary to-day, for Rojanow was as fully determined as she, to consider their acquaintance as of the slightest.

Egon cast a reproving glance toward his friend, for he could not comprehend how any one could keep silence about such a happy accident as that of piloting so lovely a woman through the wood. He entered at once, and with animation, into a conversation with the baroness. He spoke of himself as a neighbor, and of his recent visit to Fürstenstein, and his regret, great regret, at not meeting her on that occasion. But with all his chatter, the prince kept himself well within bounds, and was the polite and agreeable courtier. He knew full well that the wife of the Prussian ambassador, no matter how young and beautiful, was not to be approached with vapid, idle compliments. Hartmut had made that error in addressing the unknown girl in the wood, but Egon had the advantage of knowing to whom he spoke, and succeeded at last in thawing the beautiful baroness by his gracious, suave manner. Finally he showed her the landscape, and pointed out and explained the especial objects of interest.

Hartmut did not enter into the conversation at all, but after handing the field glass to his friend, excused himself on the plea of searching for a lost pocket-book. The watchman of the tower volunteered to go in search of it for him, but Rojanow declared he would go and look for it himself. He remembered the exact place, where, as he mounted the stairs, he had heard something drop, but had paid no attention to it at the time. He would go and find it, and then return to the platform. And with a bow he left them.

Egon, under other circumstances, would have expressed his surprise that Hartmut did not accept the old watchman's offer, instead of going himself. But now he saw his friend depart without protest; he was not unwilling to have the field to himself. The baroness had already raised the glass to her eyes, and was following attentively his explanations and comments on the surrounding country.

"And over yonder, behind that mountain of forest, lies Rodeck," he said at last. "The little hunting lodge where we two misanthropes live like hermits, cut off from all the world beside, save the apes and parrots which we brought from the East, and they, by the way, are growing very melancholy in their new home."

"One would never take your highness for a misanthrope," said Frau von Wallmoden with a fleeting smile.

"I confess I haven't much taste for it, myself, but once in a while Hartmut has a touch of the disease, and it is for his sake that I have buried myself in this solitude."

"Hartmut? That is a Hungarian name! It's very surprising that Herr Rojanow speaks such pure German without the slightest accent. And yet he told me he was a foreigner."

"Yes, he is from Roumania, but he was educated, partially at least, by kinsfolk in Germany, from whom he also got his Christian name." The young prince explained so unconcernedly that it was evident he knew as little about his friend's family as did his listener.

"You seem to be very partial to him." There was a slighting tone in her voice.

"Yes, I am indeed," exclaimed Egon, roused in an instant. "And not I, alone. Hartmut has one of those attractive, genial natures, which wins upon all who know him. But the stranger who does not see him unrestrained and at his best, can form no judgment of what he is. Then a flame of fire bursts from his soul, and touches all those with whom he comes in contact. He exercises a charm which none can resist, and where he leads all must follow."

This glowing eulogy was listened to with cool indifference by the young woman, whose whole attention seemed to be centered in the landscape, as she answered:

"You are right, doubtless. Herr Rojanow's eyes indicate an unusually fiery temperament, but their expression is uncanny and surely not sympathetic."

"Perhaps because they have that peculiar and demoniacal expression which is always the indication of genius. Hartmut has great talent; he sometimes frightens me with it, and yet it attracts me irresistibly. I really do not know how I could live without him, now. I shall do everything in my power to make him remain with me."

"In Germany? Your highness sets yourself a hard task. Herr Rojanow has a very contemptuous opinion of our country, I can assure you. He expressed himself most forcibly to that effect, the other day in the wood."

The prince listened attentively. These words explained to him what he had at first thought so singular; why Hartmut had not mentioned to him the meeting with the baroness. He smiled as he said: "Ah, that's why he never mentioned meeting you to me. You probably showed him you did not approve of his candid avowal concerning Germany; you served him just right, for there's no sense in his lying so persistently. He has often angered me with his harangues against my country, all of which I thought he meant, at the time, but now I know better."

"You do not believe, then?" Adelheid turned suddenly and faced the speaker.

"No, I have the proof of it in my hand. He fairly revels in our German scenery. Your ladyship looks at me incredulously; may I tell you a secret?"

"Well?"

"I went to Hartmut's room, this morning, to look for him," began the prince, "and he was not there; but I found on his desk what was better than finding him--a poem which he had evidently forgotten to lock up, for he never intended it for my eyes, that's certain. No pricks of conscience prevented my stealing it, and I have it with me this minute. If you would care to glance at it--"

"I do not understand the Roumanian tongue," responded Frau von Wallmoden, with a slight sneer; "and I imagine Herr Rojanow has not condescended to write in German."

For answer Egon drew a paper from his pocket, and unfolded it. "You are prejudiced against my friend, I see, but I do not want to leave him in the false light in which he has placed himself in your eyes. May I not read this to you, and let his own words be his justification?"

"If you desire."

The words were spoken indifferently, but Adelheid's eyes sought the paper with an expression of keen interest. A few verses, written in a careless, hasty hand, covered the white page. Egon began to read. They were indeed German verses, but in them was a pureness and euphony which told that they could only have been written by a master of that tongue, and the description which they gave was one well known to both listeners. Deep, sad, woodland loneliness, pervaded by the first breath of autumn; endless green depths which swayed and beckoned with their gloomy shadows; fragrant meadows flooded with the golden sunlight; silent stretches of water in the far distance, and the noisy murmur of the mountain brook, as it rushed down from some nearer height. This picture had life and speech in it, too, and had its echoes of an old-time woodland song; the rustle and whisper of the swaying branches sounded to the ear like a soft, low melody, and above all and through all, was the deep, pent-up longing for that peace which was the background of the whole scene.

The prince had begun with fervor, and entering into the spirit of the poem, read clearly and intelligently. As he finished, he turned to the baroness with a triumphant, "What do you say to that?"

Frau von Wallmoden had not lost a word; she had not looked at the reader, though, but had gazed across the distant hills. Now, at the prince's question, she turned slowly. "Is this the language of one who despises our country?" he continued, confident he had the best of the argument. And as he looked closely at her, while demanding justice for his friend, he realized for the first time, just how lovely this Frau von Wallmoden was. The rosy tints of the setting sun softened the look in the lovely eyes, and added beauty to the tender oval of her face; but there was no softness in the cold, deliberate answer: "It is really quite surprising that a foreigner should understand our language so well."

Egon stared at her. Was this all she had to say? He had expected something quite different. "And what do you think of the poem itself?" he asked.

"Very full of sentiment. Herr Rojanow seems to possess a great deal of poetical talent. Many thanks for your field glass, and now I must go down to my husband. I fear he is tired already, waiting for me."

Egon folded his paper without a word and returned it to his pocket. He had been very enthusiastic over his friend's production, and this young woman, colder and more frozen than ever now, chilled him to the bone.

"I have had the honor of meeting his excellency, and will accompany you down, with your permission," he said, courteously.

She gave a slight bow of acknowledgment and left the platform, followed by the Prince, who had grown suddenly very taciturn. He felt annoyed on his friend's account, and regretted now that he had read, what to him seemed such a wonderful poem, to a woman who evidently knew nothing whatever of poesy.

Hartmut had, in the meantime, after leaving the platform, descended the winding stairs slowly. The lost purse was a mere subterfuge, for it lay in its accustomed place in an inner pocket.

Adelheid von Wallmoden had mentioned to the prince, soon after she joined them on the platform, that her husband was awaiting her in the little inn, but that he had not cared to climb the steep, dark stairs. Hartmut knew he could not avoid a meeting, but he would at least brave it without witnesses.

If Wallmoden saw his old friend's son and recognized him, he might not be able, for the moment, to master his surprise.

Hartmut did not fear this meeting, though he knew it would be both painful and uncomfortable. There was but one in the whole world whom he feared; but one pair of eyes under whose gaze he would lack courage to lift his own, and in all probability he would never meet that one.

He could face all others with a proud defiance; he had but exercised his right in abandoning a hated career. He was decided that there should be no questioning or reproving; if he were recognized, he should request the ambassador in a most decided manner, to make no reference whatever to a past with which he was done forever.

Upon the little veranda of the summer inn, Herbert von Wallmoden sat with his sister. The impending arrival of the duke and his court for the autumn hunting had detained the head forester at home, where he was in great demand. The betrothed pair stayed at Fürstenstein, also, and as nothing better offered itself for the day, the three guests decided to come to Hochberg.

The view was especially fine this afternoon and the air was like summer. "This Hochberg is really worth seeing," said Frau von Eschenhagen, as her eyes went searchingly over the landscape. "But we have nearly as good a view here as up above. I certainly will never climb up those dark stairs, and lose my breath to see any more. No, I thank you."

"Adelheid was of a different opinion," responded her brother, as he gave a fleeting glance up the tower. "She suffers neither from fatigue nor heat."

"Or cold either. That was proven the day she was drenched to the skin. She hasn't even a sniffle from it."

"I have requested her to take a servant with her in future when she goes upon her rambles," said Herbert quietly. "To be lost in the forest and have to wade through a brook and then finally be forced to call to her aid a stray huntsman, are things that I do not care to have repeated. Adelheid saw that as clearly as I, and will not go unattended for the future."

"Ah, she's an excellent, sensible wife, a healthy nature through and through, with a proper aversion for adventure and romance," said Regine warmly. "Ah, there are other visitors on the tower. I thought we would be the only guests to-day."

Wallmoden glanced indifferently toward the tall, aristocratic young man who had just emerged from the tower door and was coming toward them; Frau von Eschenhagen's glance was careless, too, but her look changed to one both sharp and intense, and she cried out:

"Herbert, look!"

"At what?"

"At that stranger. What a strange resemblance."

"To whom?" asked Herbert, looking searchingly, too, into the face of the stranger, who was nearer them now.

"It's impossible! That is no passing resemblance. It is he, himself," cried his sister.

She sprang up pale with excitement, with her eyes fixed and staring at the young stranger, who was just putting his foot on the first step of the shaded veranda. Now his eyes met hers, his large, dark, flaming eyes which had so often looked into her own and pleaded for him in his childhood, and all doubts vanished.

"Hartmut, Hartmut Falkenried! You!"

She stopped suddenly, for Wallmoden laid his hand heavily, very heavily, on her arm, and said sharply: "You are in error, Regine, we do not know this gentleman."

Hartmut was startled, when, upon reaching the top step, he recognized Frau von Eschenhagen. The lattice-work had prevented his recognizing her, and for her presence he was not prepared. But at the very moment when he realized who it was, the ambassador's words sounded in his ears. He understood only too well what the tone and words implied and the blood rushed to his temples.

"Hartmut!" Frau Regine called again, looking uncertainly at her brother, who still held her arm fast.

"We do not know him," he repeated in the same tone. "Must I repeat it to you again, Regine?"

She understood his meaning now, and turned with a half-threatening, half-pained glance from the son of her old-time friend, as she said bitterly: "You are right. I was mistaken."

Hartmut drew himself to his full height, and an angry look flashed across his face as he drew a step nearer.

"Herr von Wallmoden!"

"What is it?" answered the other in a sharp, but contemptuous tone.

"Your excellency has but forestalled me," said Hartmut, forcing himself by mighty effort to speak quietly. "I came to request you not to know me. We are strangers to one another."

Then he turned with a haughty, defiant air, and disappeared within the little inn.

Wallmoden looked after him with knitted brow, and then turned to his sister. "Could you not have restrained yourself, Regine? Why make a scene? This Hartmut exists no more for us."

Regine's face showed clearly her intense excitement, and her lips trembled as she answered:

"I am no such staid diplomat as you, Herbert. I have not yet learned to be calm and indifferent when one whom I have for years imagined dead, or gone to ruin, suddenly springs up before me."

"Dead? He was too young to make that a probability. Gone to ruin? That is indeed possible, judging from his life lately."

"What do you mean?" asked his sister excitedly. "What do you know of his life?"

"I know something of it. Falkenried is too dear to me to make me lose sight altogether of his son. I have never mentioned what I knew to either of you. But as soon as I returned to my post, ten years ago, I used my diplomatic position to ascertain what I could concerning them."

"And what did you learn?"

"At first, only what we already knew, that Zalika had taken her son to Roumania. You knew that her step-father, our cousin Wallmoden, had died some time before, and after her divorce from Falkenried she always lived with her mother. From that time we heard nothing of her until she came to Germany to capture her son, but just before she came, as I learned, she inherited a large fortune by the death of her brother."

"Her brother? I never knew she had one."

"Yes, he was ten years her senior, and on attaining his majority had become master of a large estate. His mother's second marriage was childless and he never married. When he met with a sudden death while hunting, Zalika, being next of kin, fell heir to his large possessions. As soon as she entered into possession, she began at once to plan how she could get her son. You know that part of the story. Then they passed a few years in a wild, erratic life upon her Roumania estate, and they fairly flung money away in their extravagance. After that they became bankrupt, and mother and son went out into the world like gypsies."

Wallmoden told all this in the same cold, contemptuous tone as that in which he had spoken to Hartmut and in Regine's face, too, was a look of abhorrence for the wife and mother who had fulfilled so ill the duties of her station. But she could not restrain the anxiety she felt for the son, as she asked:

"And since then? Have you heard nothing further?"

"Yes, on several occasions. Once when I was with the embassy at Florence, I heard her name mentioned incidentally. She was at Rome; then a year after that she was back in Paris again; and sometime later I heard that Frau Zalika Rojanow was dead."

"So she is dead," said Regine, softly. "How did they live all these years?"

Wallmoden shrugged his shoulders. "How do all adventurers live? Perhaps they had saved something from the shipwreck, perhaps they hadn't. At any rate she was to be found in the saloons of Rome and Paris. A woman like Zalika could always find assistance and protection. As a Bojar's daughter she had her title of nobility, and even the forced sale of her Roumanian estate, about which many knew, may have aided her to play her _rôle_. Society opens its arms only too willingly to such as she, especially when they have talent, and that Zalika undoubtedly had. By what means she lived is another question."

"But Hartmut, upon whom she forced such a life, what of him?"

"He's an adventurer. What else could you expect?" said the ambassador in his curtest tone. "He inherited her temperament, and his life with her has developed the dormant tendency. Since his mother's death, three years ago, I have heard nothing of him."

"And why did you keep all this from me?" said Regine, reprovingly.

"I wanted to spare you all I could. You had always given the boy too warm a place in your heart, and I thought it better to let you imagine him dead. Have you ever told Falkenried any of your idle speculations concerning him?"

"Once I ventured to speak of the past to him. I hoped to break through the icy reserve which he always maintains towards me now. He looked at me, I will not soon forget his eyes, and said with fearful impressiveness: 'My son is dead. You know that, Regine. We will let the dead rest in peace.' I have never mentioned Hartmut's name since then."

"I suppose I hardly need counsel you to be silent when we return home," continued her brother. "On no account let Willibald hear of this meeting, for he's so good-natured that he'd be off at once if he heard his boyhood's friend was in the neighborhood. It's much better he should know nothing about it. If there should be a second meeting I will just ignore the fellow. Adelheid does not know him; in fact she doesn't even know that Falkenried had a son."

He broke off suddenly and arose, for his young wife and her escort emerged at that moment from the tower door. The prince greeted the ambassador and his sister, whom he had met a day or two before, and asked quite innocently whether they had seen his friend Rojanow, who had disappeared from the tower a few moments before.

Wallmoden threw a warning glance toward his sister, who stared at the prince in surprise, and answered promptly and politely that he had seen no gentleman, and added that he was just on the point of going in search of his wife, as it was quite time they should return home. The order to the groom was given at once, and a minute later the prince was bowing low to the fair woman and her husband, whom he had accompanied to the carriage. He stood a full minute looking after them when the carriage rolled away.

Hartmut stood at the window of the little public room looking at the trio in the carriage, also.

On his face lay the same deadly pallor as when the name of Wallmoden was mentioned two days before, but to-day it was the pallor of a wild, intense anger. He had steeled himself against question or reproof; these he would have met with supercilious arrogance, but the contemptuous manner in which he had been set aside struck him to his heart's core. Wallmoden's words to his sister, "We do not know him. Must I repeat that again?" incited his whole being to revolt. He felt keenly the sentence which lay in them. And Aunt Regine, too, the woman who had once shown an almost motherly affection for him, she turned her back on him as if ashamed of her first impulse to speak to him. That was too much!

"Oh, here you are at last," sounded Egon's voice from the door. "You disappeared most mysteriously. Well, did you find your pocket-book?"

Hartmut turned toward his friend; he felt he must be on his guard.

"Yes," he said absently. "I found it on the stair, as I expected."

"You might as well have let the watchman get it for you. But why didn't you come back? 'Twas very shabby of you to desert Frau von Wallmoden and me. You have not, I fear, won the lovely lady's favor. You were most ungracious."

"I shall have to endure my misfortune as best I can," said Hartmut with a shrug.

The young prince came nearer, and laid his hand affectionately on his shoulder.

"Or perhaps you incurred her displeasure day before yesterday? It is not your wont to go off on a tangent when you are conversing with a charming woman. O, I know all about it; the baroness thought fit to reprove you for your attack on Germany, and you resented it. Now, a man should agree to everything which comes from such lips."

"You seem to be quite excited," sneered Hartmut. "Better look to it that the gray-haired husband does not grow jealous, in spite of his years."

"Yes, they're a singular couple," said Egon, half aloud, as if lost in thought. "This old diplomat, with his gray hair and his keen, immobile face, and the young wife with her dazzling beauty like a--like a--"

"Northern light, above a sea of ice. It is a question which of the two is farthest below freezing point."

Prince Egon laughed out at the comparison. "Very poetical and very malicious. But you are right enough. I felt the icy breath of this polar star several times myself. It's just as well I did, for it is all that saved me from falling head over heels in love with her. But I think we'd better be starting now, don't you?" He turned to the door to order the groom to bring around the horses.

Hartmut, on the point of following him, turned once more to glance from the window at the carriage, which could be seen through an opening in the trees. He clenched his fist as he muttered:

"We will speak yet, Herr von Wallmoden. I will remain now. He shall not imagine that I am a coward and flee from him. Egon shall bring my work to the notice of the court. We shall see then whether he will dare to treat me like an adventurer. He shall pay yet for that glance and tone."