Part 15 (1/2)
It is ten o'clock,--time for bed at Zirkow. Frau Rosamunda rubs her eyes; Zdena stands, unheeded and weary, in one of the window embrasures in the hall, looking out through the antique, twisted grating upon the brilliant August moonlight. Paula is still conversing with the gentlemen; she proposes a method for exterminating the phylloxera, and has just formulated a scheme for the improvement of the Austrian foundling asylums.
They are waiting for her pony-carriage to appear, but it does not come.
At last, the gardener's boy, who is occasionally promoted to a footman's place, comes, quite out of breath, to inform his mistress that Baroness Paula's groom is in the village inn, so drunk that he cannot walk across the floor, and threatening to fight any one who interferes with him.
”Very unpleasant intelligence,” says Paula, without losing an atom of her equanimity. ”There is nothing left to do, then, but to drive home without him. I do not need him; he sits behind me, and is really only a conventional enc.u.mbrance, nothing more. Good-night, Baroness! Thanks, for the charming afternoon. Goodnight! good-night! Now that the ice is broken, I trust we shall be good neighbours.” So saying, she goes out of the open hall door.
Frau Rosamunda seems to have no objections to her driving without an escort to Dobrotschau, which is scarcely three-quarters of an hour's drive from Zirkow, and even the major apparently considers this broad-shouldered and vigorous young woman to be eminently fitted to make her way in the world alone. But Harry interposes.
”You don't mean to drive home alone?” he exclaims. ”Well, I admire your courage,--as I admire every thing else about you,” he adds, _sotto voce_, and with a Blight inclination of his head towards her,--”but I cannot permit it. You might meet some drunken labourer and be exposed to annoyance. Do me the honour to accept me as your escort,--that is, allow me to take the place of your useless groom.”
”By no means!” she exclaims. ”I never could forgive myself for giving you so much trouble. I a.s.sure you, I am perfectly able to take care of myself.”
”On certain occasions even the most capable and clever of women lose their capacity to judge,” Harry declares. ”Be advised this time!” he implores her, as earnestly as though he were praying his soul out of purgatory. ”My groom will accompany us. He must, of course, take my horse to Dobrotschau. Have no scruples.”
As if it would ever have occurred to Baroness Paula to have ”scruples”!
Oh, Harry!
”If you really would be so kind then, Baron Harry,” she murmurs, tenderly.
”Thank G.o.d, she has gone at last!” sighs Frau Rosamunda, as she hears the light wagon rolling away into the night. ”At last!”
CHAPTER VI.
ENTRAPPED.
Before Harry seated himself beside the robust Paula in the pony-carriage, a slender little hand was held out to him, and a pale little face, half sad, half pouting, looked longingly up at him.
He saw neither the hand nor the face. Oh, the pity of it!
The night is sultry and silent. The full moon s.h.i.+nes in a cloudless, dark-blue sky. Not a breath of air is stirring; the leaves of the tall poplars, casting coal-black shadows on the white, dusty highway, are motionless.
The harvest has been partly gathered in; sometimes the moonlight illumines the bare fields with a yellowish l.u.s.tre; in other fields the sheaves are stacked in pointed heaps, and now and then a field of rye is pa.s.sed, a plain of glimmering, silvery green, still uncut. The bearded stalks stand motionless with bowed heads, as if overtaken by sleep. From the distance comes the monotonous rustle of the mower's scythe; there is work going on even thus far into the night.
The heavy slumberous air has an effect upon Harry; his breath comes slowly, his veins tingle.
Ten minutes have pa.s.sed, and he has not opened his lips. Paula Harfink looks at him now and then with a keen glance.
She is twenty-seven years old, and, although her life has been that of a perfectly virtuous woman of her cla.s.s, existence no longer holds any secrets for her. Endowed by nature with intense curiosity, which has been gradually exalted into a thirst for knowledge, she has read everything that is worth reading in native and foreign modern literature, scientific and otherwise, and she is consequently thoroughly conversant with the world in which she lives.
Harry's exaggerated homage during the afternoon has suggested the idea that he contemplates a marriage with her. That other than purely sentimental reasons have weight with him in this respect she thinks highly probable, but there is nothing offensive to her in the thought.
She knows that, in spite of her beauty, she must buy a husband; why then should she not buy a husband whom she likes?
Nothing could happen more opportunely than this drive in the moonlight.
She is quite sure of bringing the affair to a satisfactory conclusion.
Click-clack--the ponies' hoofs beat the dusty road in monotonous rhythm, tossing light silvery clouds of dust into the moonlight. Harry is still silent, when--a plump hand is laid upon his arm.