Part 9 (1/2)
”He has gone for a moment to the dining-hall,” Elmhorst replied, after a salutation quite as formal as her own.
For an instant Erna seemed about to follow her uncle, but, apparently recollecting that this might be discourteous towards a future relative, she paused and let her gaze wander through the long suite of rooms.
”I think you see these rooms fully lighted to-night for the first time, Herr Elmhorst? They are very fine, are they not?”
”Very fine; and upon one coming, as I do, from the winter solitude of the mountains, they produce a dazzling impression.”
”They dazzled me too when I first came here,” the young lady said, indifferently; ”but one easily becomes accustomed to such surroundings, as you will find by experience when you take up your residence here. It is settled that you are to be married in a year, is it not?”
”It is,--next spring.”
”Rather a long time to wait. Have you really consented to such a period of probation?”
The lover seemed, oddly enough, to be rather averse to this allusion to his marriage. He examined with apparent interest a huge porcelain vase which stood near him, and replied, evidently desirous of changing the subject, ”I cannot but consent, since for the present I am master neither of my time nor of my movements. The first thing to be attended to is the completion of the railway, of the construction of which I am superintendent.”
”Are you, then, so fettered?” Erna asked, with gentle irony. ”I should have thought you would find it easy to liberate yourself?”
”Liberate myself,--from what?”
”From a profession which you must certainly resign in the future.”
”Do you consider that as a matter of course, Fraulein von Thurgau?”
Wolfgang asked, nettled by her tone. ”I cannot see what should induce such a course on my part.”
”Why, your future position as the husband of Alice Nordheim.”
The young engineer flushed crimson; he glanced angrily at the girl who ventured to remind him that he was marrying money. She was smiling, and her remark sounded like a jest, but her eyes spoke a different language, the language of contempt, which he understood but too well.
He was not a man, however, to rest quietly under the scorn which pursues a fortune-hunter; he too smiled, and rejoined, with cool courtesy, ”Pardon me, Fraulein von Thurgau, you are mistaken. My profession, my work, are necessities of existence for me. I was not made for an idle, inactive enjoyment of life. This seems incomprehensible to you----”
”Not at all,” Erna interposed. ”I perfectly understand how a true man must depend solely upon his own exertions.”
Wolfgang bit his lip, but he parried this thrust too: ”That I may accept as a compliment, for I certainly depended entirely upon my own exertions when I planned the Wolkenstein bridge, and I trust my work will bring me credit, even as 'the husband of Alice Nordheim.' But excuse me; these are matters which cannot interest a lady.”
”They interest me,” Erna said, bluntly. ”My home was destroyed by the Wolkenstein bridge, and your work demanded yet another and far dearer sacrifice of me.”
”Which you never can forgive me, I know,” Wolfgang went on. ”You reproach me for an unhappy accident, although your sense of justice must tell you that I am not to blame, that I do not deserve it.”
”I do not blame you, Herr Elmhorst.”
”You did in that most wretched hour, and you do it still.”
Erna did not reply, but her silence was eloquent enough. Elmhorst appeared to have expected a denial, if only a formal one, for there was an added bitterness in his tone as he continued: ”I regret infinitely that I should have been the one chosen to conduct the last business arrangements with Baron Thurgau. They had to be made, and their tragic conclusion lay beyond human foresight. It was not I, Fraulein Thurgau, but iron necessity that required of you the sacrifice of your home; the Wolkenstein bridge is not less guilty than I am.”
”I know it,” Erna observed, coldly; ”but there are cases in which one finds it impossible to be just,--you should see that, Herr Elmhorst.
You are now a member of our family, and may rest a.s.sured that I shall show you all the consideration due to a relative; for my feelings I cannot be called to account.”
Wolfgang looked her full and darkly in the face: ”In other words, you detest my work and--myself?”
Erna was silent: she had long outgrown the childish waywardness that had once prompted her to tell the stranger to his face that she could not endure him or his sneers at her mountain-legends. The young lady never dreamed of conduct so unbecoming, and she confronted him now in entire self-possession. But her eyes had not forgotten their language, and at this moment they declared that the girlish nature was quelled only in appearance,--it still slumbered untamed in the depths of her soul. There was a lightning-flash in them which uttered a quick, vehement 'yes' in answer to Wolfgang's last question, although the lips were mute.