Part 24 (1/2)
”Very well,” she answered absently.
Josepha brought the lamp and enquired when the countess desired to have supper? Freyer took his hat to go.
”I shall eat nothing more to-night!” said the countess in a curt, impatient tone, and Josepha timidly withdrew.
Madeleine von Wildenau covered her face with both hands like a person who had been roused from a beautiful dream to bare reality.
”Alas--that there must be other people in the world, besides ourselves!” She sighed heavily, as if to take breath after the terrible fall. Freyer, hat in hand, approached her, calm and self-controlled.
Joseph Freyer, addressing Countess Wildenau, had no remembrance of what the penitent soul had just confided to the image of the Redeemer.
”Allow me to take my leave, your Highness,” he said in a gentle, but distant tone.
The countess understood the delicate modesty of this conduct. ”Did your blue gentians teach this tact? It would seem that lonely pastures, whispering hazel copses, and das.h.i.+ng mountain streams are better educators of the heart, for those who understand their mysterious language, than many of our schools.”
Freyer was silent a moment, then with eyes bent on the floor, he said: ”May I ask when your Highness intends to leave to-morrow?”
”_Must_ I go, Freyer?”
”Your Highness--”
”Here is a telegram which announces my arrival at home to-morrow. Tell me, Freyer, shall I send it?”
”How can _I_ decide--” stammered Freyer in confusion.
”I wish to know whether you--_you_, Freyer, would like to keep me here?”
”But Good Heavens, your Highness--is it seemly for me to express such a wish? Of course it will be a great pleasure to have you remain--but how could I seek to influence you in any way?”
”Mere phrases!” said the countess, disappointed and offended. ”Then, if it is a matter of indifference to you whether I go or stay, I will send the telegram.” She went to the table to add something.
Suddenly he stood close beside her, with a beseeching, tearful glance--and laid his hand upon the paper.
”No--do not send it.”
”Not send it?” asked Madeleine in blissful expectation. ”Not send it--then what am I to do?”
His lips moved several times, as if he could not utter the word--but at last it escaped from his closed heart, and with an indescribable smile he murmured: ”Stay!”
Ah! A low cry of exultation escaped the countess, and the telegram lay torn upon the table. Then with a trembling hand she wrote the second, which she requested him to send at once. It contained only the words: ”Am ill--cannot come!”
He was still standing at her side, and she gave it to him to read.
”Is it true?” he asked, after glancing at it, looking at her with timid, sportive reproach. ”Are you ill?”
”Yes!” she said caressingly, laying her hand, as if she felt a pang, upon her heart. ”I _am_!”
He clasped both in his own and asked softly in a tone which sent a thrill of happiness through every vein: ”How shall we _cure_ this illness?”
She felt his warm breath on her waving hair--and dared not stir.