Part 3 (1/2)
”Extremely happy, madame, extremely so. My name you have heard, and this is my daughter. Come, Erna, why do you stand there so silent? Are you not going to speak to Alice?”
Erna approached slowly, a frown still on her brow, but it vanished entirely at sight of her young cousin lying so weary and pale among her cus.h.i.+ons; suddenly with all her wonted eagerness she threw her arms round Alice's neck and cried out, ”Poor Alice, I am so sorry you are ill!”
Alice accepted the caress without returning it; but when the blooming, rosy face nestled close to her colourless cheek, when a pair of fresh lips pressed her own, and the warm, tender tones fell on her ear, something akin to a smile appeared upon her apathetic features and she replied, softly, ”I am not ill, only tired.”
”Pray, Baroness, be less demonstrative,” Frau von Lasberg said, coldly.
”Alice must be very gently treated; her nerves are extremely sensitive.”
”What? Nerves?” said Thurgau. ”That's a complaint of the city folks.
With us at Wolkenstein Court there are no such things. You ought to come with Alice to us, madame; I'll promise you that in three weeks neither of you will have a single nerve.”
”I can readily believe it,” the lady replied, with an indignant glance.
”Come, Thurgau, let us leave the children to make acquaintance with each other; they have not seen each other for years,” said Nordheim, who, although quite used to his brother-in-law's rough manner, was annoyed by it in the present company. He would have led the way to the next room, but Elmhorst, who during this domestic scene had considerately withdrawn to the recess of a window, now advanced, as if about to take his leave, whereupon the president, of course, presented him to his relative.
Thurgau immediately remembered the name which he had heard mentioned in no flattering fas.h.i.+on by the comrades of the young superintendent, whose attractive exterior seemed only to confirm the Freiherr in his mistrust of him. Erna too had turned towards the stranger; she suddenly started and retreated a step.
”This is not the first time that I have had the honour of meeting the Baroness Thurgau,” said Elmhorst, bowing courteously. ”She was kind enough to act as my guide when I had lost my way among the cliffs of the Wolkenstein. Her name, indeed, I hear to-day for the first time.”
”Ah, indeed. So this was the stranger whom you met?” growled Thurgau, not greatly edified, it would seem, by this encounter.
”I trust the Baroness was not alone?” Frau von Lasberg inquired, in a tone which betrayed her horror at such a possibility.
”Of course I was alone!” Erna exclaimed, perceiving the reproach in the lady's words, and flaming up indignantly. ”I always walk alone in the mountains, with only Griff for a companion. Be quiet, Griff! Lie down!”
Elmhorst had tried to stroke the beautiful animal, but his advances had been met with an angry growl. At the sound of his mistress's voice, however, the dog was instantly silent and lay down obediently at her feet.
”The dog is not cross, I hope?” Nordheim asked, with evident annoyance.
”If he is, I must really entreat----”
”Griff is never cross,” Erna interposed almost angrily. ”He never hurts any one, and always lets strangers pat him, but he does not like this gentleman at all, and----”
”Baroness--I beg of you!” murmured Frau von Lasberg, with difficulty maintaining her formal demeanour. Elmhorst, however, acknowledged Erna's words with a low bow.
”I am excessively mortified to have fallen into disgrace with Herr Griff, and, as I fear, with his mistress also,” he declared, ”but it really is not my fault. Allow me, ladies, to bid you good-morning.”
He approached Alice, beside whom Frau von Lasberg was standing guard, as if to protect her from all contact with these savages who had suddenly burst into the drawing-room, and who could not, unfortunately, be turned out, because, setting aside the relations.h.i.+p, they were Baron and Baroness born.
On the other hand, this young man with the bourgeois name conducted himself like a gentleman. His voice was gentle and sympathetic as he expressed the hope that Fraulein Nordheim would recover her health in the air of Heilborn; he courteously kissed the hand of the elder lady when she graciously extended it to him, and then he turned to the president to take leave of him also, when a most unexpected interruption occurred.
Outside on the balcony, which overhung the garden and was half filled with blossoming shrubs, appeared a kitten, which had probably found its way thither from the garden. It approached the open gla.s.s door with innocent curiosity, and, unfortunately, came within the range of Griff's vision. The dog, in his hereditary hostility to the tribe of cats, started up, barking violently, almost overturned Frau von Lasberg, shot past Alice, frightening her terribly, and out upon the balcony, where a wild chase began. The terrified kitten tore hither and thither with lightning-like rapidity without finding any outlet of escape and with its persecutor in close pursuit; the gla.s.s panes of the door rattled, the flower-pots were overturned and smashed, and amidst the confusion were heard the Freiherr's shrill whistle and Erna's voice of command. The dog, young, not fully broken, and eager for the chase, did not obey,--the hurly-burly was frightful.
At last the kitten succeeded in jumping upon the bal.u.s.trade of the balcony and thence down into the garden. But Griff would not let his prey escape him thus; he leaped after it, overturning as he did so the only flower-pot as yet uninjured, and immediately afterwards there was a terrific barking in the garden, mingled with a child's scream of terror.
All this happened in less than two minutes, and when Thurgau hurried out on the balcony to establish peace it was already too late. Meanwhile, the drawing-room was a scene of indescribable confusion,--Alice had a nervous attack, and lay with her eyes closed in Frau von Lasberg's arms; Elmhorst, with quick presence of mind, had picked up a cologne-bottle and was sprinkling with its contents the fainting girl's temples and forehead, while the president, scowling, pulled the bell to summon the servants. In the midst of all this the two gentlemen and Frau von Lasberg witnessed a spectacle which almost took away their breath. The young Baroness, the Freifraulein von Thurgau, suddenly stood upon the bal.u.s.trade of the balcony, but only for an instant, before she sprang down into the garden.