Part 15

The dog sprang up at her boisterously from behind the garden door, where he had been waiting for her. She buried her face in his leonine coat, to hide her burning blushes. If she blushed at sight of the dog, simply because he had been a witness of yesterday's events, how should she be able to conceal the treacherous glow when she met his master?

The breakfast-table, with its snowy cloth, still stood on the terrace. Three unused cups shone in the sun. It looked as if he, too, hadn't been there.

Her heart beat louder. Did fate ordain that she should be absolutely _tete-a-tete_ with him? What would he have to say to her? What she to him? The thought so frightened her that her knees trembled.

"In another quarter of an hour," she thought, "perhaps I shall be engaged."

It seemed quite terrible--almost incredible. And how should she conduct herself in this trying ordeal?

"I must not just fall into his arms," thought she, "so that he will think me crude in everything, and misunderstand me again."

She decided to cut a handful of roses. Instead of the usual "Good morning," she would greet him with these and a look that should say, "Take them, beloved. All is yours--all." She selected deep-crimson blooms, full grown with a wealth of curving petals. Each one would speak of love to him--of that wild, entrancing love of which poets sang so beautifully, from whose kisses one drank either eternal bliss or damnation. Nothing pale or faded should have a place in her bouquet.

But she did not adorn herself with a rose. Was he not to be for always the one and only ornament of her life?

Leo, the dog, trotted meanwhile behind her well satisfied, now and then rubbing his nose lovingly against her sleeve.

"Where is your master?" she asked him, with a sigh.

The beast looked up in her face with comprehending, melancholy eyes. For hours, since daybreak, he had been looking for him everywhere, but he had ridden off on a secret mission without asking his faithful friend to bear him company.

As she ascended the steps of the terrace grandmamma came to meet her.

She caught hold of the balustrade, trembling. What if he had already confided the news to his mother? Was she coming before her with a heart whose secret had been laid bare? She ran to her quickly, and hid her head on her breast so that she shouldn't be looked at.

The old lady patted her, full of solicitude "No cold, I hope--no fever?" she asked.

Hertha breathed more freely. Ah! she didn't know.

"Let me feel your pulse," grandmamma commanded.

Hertha wriggled away.

"I like that!" she thought. "To-day, of all days, to have my pulse felt! Next I shall be asked to put out my tongue!" And she barricaded herself behind the table.

Grandmamma made the best of a bad matter, but she was not going to let her off without a lecture. Hertha, with quivering lips and wandering eyes, let the mild outburst pass over her head. Her gaze was directed to Leo's empty coffee-cup, her ear towards the courtyard.

And then suddenly the hound gave a howl of delight. Ringing, clattering footsteps came echoing along the corridor.

Hertha felt her blood ebb from her veins, and as if she must, at his glance, fall dead from shame. She dashed the roses down on the table, and tore at hot speed into the garden; and grandmamma, whose lecture was in full swing, looked after her in consternation. There was a nook in the yew hedge which ran out from the castle into the garden where, unseen, it was possible to hear and see all that passed on the terrace. There she quickly concealed herself.

He stood framed in the glass door, heated and dusty, with a deep frown on his brow which terrified Hertha.

Grandmamma gently reproached him. How was it that it was nearly noon and nothing had been seen of him before?

"I had business to attend to," was his curt, gruff answer. Then he sat down and played carelessly with the scattered roses.

Hertha was grieved; thus her pretty little plan came to nothing. Of course, he didn't suspect how significant those roses were for him.

"What are the kids doing?" he asked.

Hertha started. She didn't deserve to be called by such a name as that. But she comforted herself with the thought that he was trying to hide his secret.

Grandmamma gave him the desired information. Hertha had put in an appearance, but Elly was still asleep. To-day she might have grace and sleep to twelve if she liked--the longer the better.

He was hungry, and crumbled the toasted rolls impatiently. "What incapable dog of a cook have we got now?" he grumbled.

Grandmamma stood up to go and see what had happened in the kitchen.

"Hertha is waiting too," she said.

"Where is the little one?" he asked.

"She has scampered away from you once more, like a frightened hare," responded grandmamma. "I will send her out if I see her." With which she went into the house.

Hertha saw how he smiled to himself for a moment, then wrinkled his brows again in heavy thought. With his head buried in his hands, he sat brooding there.

Infinite compassion awoke in Hertha. "He has been bothered by some new trouble," she thought, "and his cares make his head ache." From now on it would be her duty to stand by him in time of trial, whatever her mood might be.

And with resolute steps, digging her heels into the ground, she emerged from the yew hedge. But when she reached the foot of the terrace, she reeled and was obliged to pause for breath. She had never imagined that one could feel such unspeakable fear of the man one loved better than life itself.

Now she was at the top of the steps. But, still lost in meditation, he did not look up. He held one of the roses between his lips, and chewed the stalk.

She was trembling so much that she had to steady herself by holding on to the corner of the table. How should she greet him? A mere "Good morning" sounded too commonplace and everyday. She sighed.

Then at last he looked up. A friendly, quiet smile beamed on his face.

"Good morning; good morning," he said quite naturally. "Why that deep sigh? Have we caught cold--a touch of fever, eh?"

She gazed silently at him with great wounded eyes. These were almost exactly the same words as good old grandmamma had used. Perhaps he too was going to ask to feel her pulse. Her hand fluttered in his; then she sank into an armchair, still not speaking. Again the dread overcame her that, after thinking it over, he had decided she was too immature, and would treat yesterday as if it had never been. And she would have no means of combating his decision and making him act otherwise.

"Yes--yes, that was a quaint adventure," he went on, as he stretched himself and put his hand before his mouth to suppress a yawn of fatigue; "but we caught you neatly, you runaway."

Her fears increased. If only she had not been such a coward--such an unutterable coward--she would have drawn herself to her full height and exclaimed indignantly, "Why do you despise me to-day? Don't you know what you have done?" But she didn't dare move an eyelash, much less look up.

And as she still remained tongue-tied, he bent over her, and, stroking her forehead, asked her, grinning--

"Have we made peace at last, dear child?"

This was a ray of light. She thanked God for it, nodded, and tried to smile.

"Well, well," he ejaculated in doubt, as she had not spoken.

But instead of an answer, she gathered the roses together and offered them to him.

"Do they belong to me?" he asked.

"Yes, to you," she whispered, with a shy, tender light in her eyes, "dir".[1] He marked the expression, and a bitter sense of a marred happiness stabbed his soul. He seized the little brown hand in gratitude.

At this moment steps were heard in the dining-room, the glass door of which stood open.

"Grandmamma is coming!" exclaimed Hertha, shocked, snatching away her hand.

"Well, let her come," he said, in some surprise.

Then, as grandmamma appeared, followed by Christian, he relapsed again into reverie. He ate and drank, but it was like an automaton eating and drinking.

Her eyes did not move from his face. She dreaded to try and win a look from him, full of understanding and warm feeling, yet it seemed as if she had ceased to exist for him. She might be stupid, and of course she was, but this much she knew--that a man did not usually treat the woman of his choice in such a manner.

Meta Podewyl, for instance, and Hans Sembritzky were in love with each other for a long time before he declared himself. They called each other "Herr Baron" and "Gnaediges Fraeulein" quite stiffly, and were outwardly like strangers; but their eyes could not deceive them. They spoke a glowing language which made all formality a pretence. And then how dreamily and blissfully they had smiled away into vacancy, when their eyes might no longer meet! But he--oh, he!

With a low murmur, he stood up, shot his shirt-cuffs, whistled to his dog, and strode away without vouchsafing her another look. Without another look!

Later the same thing repeated itself. Hertha sat through lunch in dull misery. Two tears fell on the hands that nervously crumbled her bread.

Grandmamma had been sharply observing her, and it had not escaped her that Hertha, whose healthy appetite was proverbial in the house, had to-day scarcely swallowed a morsel of meat.

She slipped noiselessly out of her seat, pushed Elly aside, and caught hold of Hertha's left hand.

She jumped up as if she had been pricked by a needle.

"Sit down, and give me your wrist," commanded grandmamma.

Further resistance was useless. And the pulse was indeed galloping feverishly. Then she was asked to show her tongue. This she wouldn't do.

"Grandmamma, please don't torment me," she begged, and flung her arms round her neck, bursting into tears.

But grandmamma would not allow herself to be trifled with in such important matters. "Show me your tongue," she insisted.

But the tongue was still not forthcoming. Then ensued a sharp tussle, in which Hertha was defeated.

And this was how she was treated, and her heartache misunderstood. She was ordered to bed; and told she must perspire.

XVI

On the afternoon of the same day, Leo Sellenthin reined in his mare at the gateway of Uhlenfelde. The heraldic sword amidst the three wide-jawed fish pointed warningly down on him from the escutcheon of the Kletzingks above the entrance.

As he wiped the sweat from his brow, a last faint "Turn back," breathed by the rustling leaves, fell on his ear. But he clenched his teeth, and rode on. To the left, on the same side as the stream, lay the house, a white slate-crowned bijou structure, resembling the country seat of a parvenu more than the ancestral castle of a doughty old feudal race.

It had been built at her desire, for the former gray castellated pile had not found favour with the fair new mistress. Two female figures in marble, representing peace and hospitality, stretched out their shining arms in welcome to the stranger from the parapet of the ramparts, which were approached by a terraced drive. Groups of widespreading palms, overarched by the ragged plumes of a banana, filled the space made by the curve of the drive. The jagged, fan-like foliage stretched up to the marble figures, which in their snow-whiteness seemed like rare exotic blooms in this wilderness of green.

Leo turned away from the house, for, according to the programme, he was not to meet Felicitas until he had seen Ulrich.

The spacious courtyard stretched its huge length before his eyes. Ulrich, it would appear, had been building without a pause during the last few years, for more than half the offices and farm-buildings had been rebuilt. Where once the long white clay wall covered with stubbly thatch had stood, there was now a row of brand-new brick palaces, with iron bolts and locks, stone porches, and a system of covered drainage round about.

In the yard, drawn up in columns, were the long waggons with their big strong axles, and their fresh-polished wood agleam. There were the ploughs--a distinguished blue-coated regiment, beginning with a bulky "Ruchadlo," and ending with the slender furrow hedgehog, a beautiful "Fowler" steam plough with double shafts--and an engine at the head. The more delicate machines lay under the shelter of a shed; the drainers and the manure-scatterer, and the newest inventions, just arrived from England. There was also a "Zimmermann" threshing-machine, of the kind Leo himself so earnestly coveted, and a five-tubed apparatus for setting seed.

A feeling of admiration untainted by envy awoke in him. A good deal that he had only seen before at agricultural exhibitions, where he had been apt to regard it all scarcely sympathetically as so much machinery _de luxe_, was there in everyday use, its working capabilities tested and proved.

In another place, on wooden blocks, boxes out of the potato carts lay huddled together like unslain dragons weltering in the sun. Near the stable stood a company of iron-spouted kettles, in which during the winter the tougher-fibred fodder was soaked, and made easy for the mouths of the cattle to masticate. To crown all, there was a perfect reservoir designed by Wolf, such as only model farms could afford. Black clouds of smoke issued from the tall chimney which flanked the distillery buildings, for, although the distillery itself was not this moment at work, the steam-engine was setting in motion the dairy machinery, which was in full activity. Long rows of milkpails were ranged near it facing the sun, snowy white with gold-gleaming hoops--the tin strainers shining as bright as silver; the butter-churns and butter-separators, and all sorts of implements which Leo didn't even know by sight; at every step some new wonder was revealed to him.

"And what is _my_ old lumber in comparison with this?" he thought.

Then a solemn mood overtook him, a feeling of reverend exultation, which banished all his fears, and for a moment let him forget what had brought him there. If it was within human possibility to accomplish all this by dint of energy and strength of purpose, why should not he succeed in a like achievement? He had only to push on steadily from the point at which he had begun, to throw himself heart and soul in his work, and to abandon frivolity and philandering for evermore. The elevating example of his friend before his eyes, the feeling of deliverance which it would give him to procure secretly his happiness, this alone would prevent his making shipwreck again of his career.

As he drew near the stable, a groom whom he did not know met him, and smiled up in his face with familiar impertinence.

"The mistress is not at home to-day," he remarked. "Two lots have had to ride away without seeing her."

"Speak when you are spoken to, fellow!" Leo thundered at him, so that with an anxious exclamation he nearly jumped out of his skin.

What a delightful understanding must exist between servants and guests when a complete stranger was received with this gratuitous officiousness! And how it was accepted as a matter of course that his visit was intended for the fair lady of the house!

He sprang out of the saddle, and was told that the master was with the horses in the paddock, exercising the two-year-olds. He walked in that direction, and the groom, who was probably in the habit of being tipped by his mistress's admirers, glared after him dumbfounded.

On the miniature racecourse which sloped towards the stream, Ulrich's lanky figure was to be seen, surrounded by a crowd of golden-brown thoroughbred colts, which were pressing against him to be caressed by his hand. Leo's heart smote him at the thought of the comedy of deception he had given his word to enact, and the victim of which was to be the man who was dearest to him in the world. But what was to happen was to be for his happiness and his peace of mind. Therefore he must go forward with it.

The colts, at his approach, bounded away half shyly, half roguishly. Ulrich turned round. Pure joy, succeeded the next moment by horror, lit up his emaciated features.

"You at Uhlenfelde?" he gasped.

"How do you do, little girl?" cried Leo, forcing himself into an assumption of his old genial manner. "Don't let your eyes quite start out of your head. You can set the dogs on me to chase me out of the yard if I am not welcome."

And then he repeated his lesson. How he felt things could not go on as they were, and he wanted to try if, by means of an interview with Felicitas, he could get to the bottom of the aversion she had expressed for him, and through an explanation put the relations between them on a more tolerable footing. Therefore he besought his friend to go indoors and beg Felicitas to see him.

A smile of hopelessness flitted over Ulrich's face. "It is altogether useless," he replied. "I am sure that she won't receive you. You don't know in what strong terms she speaks of you."

"That may be," said Leo, without daring to raise his eyes from the ground, "but at least make the attempt. Say I have come to ask her pardon, anything you like."

Ulrich reflected, and then said, "Very well, come. It shall not be said that I did not try, however little good it may be."

They left the enclosure, surrounded by the colts, who had begun to make friendly overtures to the stranger. But he took no notice of them. Mutely he walked at his friend's side, now and then giving himself a shake, as if he would shake off from his soul some insupportable horror.

Ulrich stood still when they came to the ramparts.

"In case she does consent, do you think it best to see her alone?" he asked.

"Certainly," Leo replied, feeling that he was not used yet to the distasteful game he was pledged to play in the eyes of his unsuspecting friend.

"Then let me go in to her, and you wait out here. Forgive me," he added, "but unless it is her desire, I cannot permit you to enter the house consecrated to her honour."

Leo nearly crushed his hand in his own, but he hadn't the courage to meet the eyes that rested on him with their fiery brilliance melting into tenderness. He watched him disappear behind the statue of peace. He fixed his gaze absently on the marble woman, who seemed to hold out her palm-branch towards him with a friendly gesture. Then he began to pace up and down the forecourt with long strides. He dared not think of what was going on indoors at that moment.

Quarter of an hour passed, when Ulrich, glowing from excitement, his long neck eagerly thrust forward, came out.

"Leo?"

"Well, old fellow."

"It was difficult, Leo, but she gives her consent."

"Thank you, a hundred times, Uli," he stammered, and blushed like a lying schoolboy.

"So far, she has only one end in view," Ulrich continued. "That is, to send you home humiliated and wretched. But you must see what you can do with her, my boy, and think of the fever I am in meanwhile."

Yes, he really was feverish. His hands trembled, and the blood throbbed in his temples.

He led the way, and Leo pushed quickly past him; secure already of victory, but as full of dread and shame as if he had been defeated. He found her stretched on a lounge, her face buried in the cushions. She appeared to have sunk down there after the mental excitement of the last quarter of an hour. A tea-gown of primrose-coloured, coarse-fibred silk hung about her limbs in _negligee_ folds. His diamond flashed on the hand which she held out to him without changing her position.

"Shut the door," she whispered.

He obeyed.

Then she lifted her face for the first time. Her eyes were red from crying.

"How had she been able to manufacture tears for this farce?" he asked himself.

"Oh, I was so ashamed of myself," she murmured.

Ah! she had been ashamed; that would account for it. And he began to console her. He told her this horrible hour must be got over.... Later, of course, there would be no more double dealing; every action of theirs must pass above-board before Ulrich's eyes.

"That was understood before," she exclaimed, offended that he had thought it necessary to remind her.

And in the midst of her distress she smiled at him--a coy, happy smile.

"Now he thinks that we----" she began. Her sentence did not end, but there was something in her broken words that made the blood mount hotly to his brow.

"That's bad enough," he growled, and turned his back.

There was a silence. He drew out his watch, and studied the hands.

"I thank you, Leo, for coming to-day," she began again shyly, after a little while.

"Didn't you expect me, then?" he asked.

"Oh, you know you might not have come," she responded with a sigh. "Such a woman as I am."

"Such a woman as you are! What do you mean?"

"Well, I mean that it wouldn't be surprising if people didn't keep their word to me."

He felt a bitter resentment against this sort of self-abasement.

"I must beg you, Lizzie," he said, "to drop this false humility. You are the wife of Ulrich von Kletzingk. As such, you have the right to claim respect, the highest respect from me and every one else. And who doesn't ..."

He broke off and raised his fists, so that she withdrew frightened into a corner of the lounge.

"Pray, for goodness' sake, don't get so angry again," she whispered. "I am miserable enough."

"That is to be all over now," he said.

"What, my misery?" she asked with a disconsolate smile.

Then he began with vehement zeal to describe to her what he proposed the future should be. He had a double mission in her house. First, Ulrich's happiness; secondly, her rehabilitation.

With his assistance she was to free herself from the oppressive consciousness of the old guilt, she was to learn to hold up her head again, and to get used to a sense of reconquered dignity, so that it was not to be conceived for a moment that the most impertinent dared approach her with anything less than what was due to her position.

"You paint Heaven to me," she murmured, and a tremulous radiance began to gleam in her eyes.

"I only paint what it is possible to realise," he answered. "When we open this door, Lizzie, all the old rottenness must be sloughed off. We shall begin a new life from that moment."

She pressed her handkerchief to her eyes, and exhaled over him a cloud of the perfume she habitually used. The discreet delicacy of the iris was overpowered by the sharp sweetness of the opoponax, so that, half-suffocated by the pungent odour of the atmosphere around her, he made for the window.

His glance wandered round the one-windowed apartment, which had once been his own putting-up quarters; it was now transformed, regardless of cost, into the luxurious nest of a fashionable woman of the world.

The walls were hung with blue brocade; small gilded chairs, with butterfly-wings for backs, card-tables, tabourets and stools of every description, were dotted about, crouching on the Indian carpet like fabulous beasts. A gigantic fan of snow-white marabou feathers served as a screen for the stove. Bronzes and antique bric-a-brac figures, dainty and alluring, populated the cabinets; a marqueterie bookcase contained the mistress's favourite volumes, bound in ivory-coloured vellum, and an old Venetian altar-cloth was draped in coquettish folds over it as a curtain. Above the writing-table there shone in Carrara marble the dreamy head of the Vatican Eros, outlined with a bluish tinge, for the light penetrated to it through a blue and gold embroidered gauze background, flooding the room one moment with a subdued duskiness, the next with vivid flashes of sunshine.

The whole was an interior commonly enough seen in European capitals, but something quite unheard of here in the remote "Hinterwald."

"He spoils you far too much," he said, with a kind of paternal smile, shaking his finger at her.

"His kindness weighs me to the earth," she replied, pressing her milk-white face against the cushions.

Again he looked at his watch. "Time is up," he said; "we mustn't keep him waiting for nothing."