Part 24 (2/2)
”I really have had enough of this stuff for once!” he exclaims, laying aside his volume.
”Ah, Harry, how can you speak so of the most exquisite poetry of love that ever has been written?”
He twirls his moustache ill-humouredly, and murmurs, ”You are very much changed within the last few days.”
”But not for the worse?” she asks, piqued.
”At last she is going to take offence,” he says to himself, exultantly, and he is beginning to finger his betrothal-ring, when the door opens and a servant announces, ”Herr Count Fainacky.”
”How well you look, my dear Baroness Paula! Ah, the correct air, beaming with bliss,--_on connat cela!_ Taking advantage of your Frau mother's kind invitation, I present myself, as you see, without notification,” the Pole chatters on. ”How are you, Harry? In the seventh heaven, of course,--of course.” And he drops into an arm-chair and fans himself with a pink-bordered pocket-handkerchief upon which are depicted various jockeys upon race-horses, and which exhales a strong odour of musk.
”I am extremely glad to see you,” Paula a.s.sures the visitor. ”I hope you have come to stay some days with us. Have you seen mamma yet?”
”No.” And Fainacky fans himself yet more affectedly. ”I wandered around the castle at first without finding any one to announce me. Then I had an adventure,--ha, ha! _C'est par trop bte!_”
”What was it?”
”In my wanderings I reached an open door into a room looking upon the garden. There I found Treurenberg and a young lady,--only fancy,--I thought it was his wife. I took that--what is her name?--Olga--your _protge_--for your sister,--for the Countess Selina, and begged Treurenberg to present me to his wife,--ha, ha! _Vraiment c'est par trop bte!_”
At this moment a tall, portly figure, with reddish hair, dazzling complexion, and rather sharp features, sails into the room.
”Here is my sister,” says Paula, and a formal introduction follows.
”Before seeing the Countess Selina I thought my mistake only comical. I now think it unpardonable!” Fainacky exclaims, with his hand on his heart. ”Harry, did the resemblance never strike you?” He gazes in a rapture of admiration at the Countess.
”What resemblance?” asks Harry.
”Why, the resemblance to the Princess of Wales.”
CHAPTER XIV.
OLGA.
”And pray who is Frulein Olga?”
It is Fainacky who puts this question to the Countess Treurenberg, just after luncheon, during which meal he has contrived to ingratiate himself thoroughly with Lato's wife.
He and the Countess are seated beneath a red-and-gray-striped tent on the western side of the castle; beside them stands a table from which the coffee has not yet been removed. The rest of the company have vanished.
The Baroness Harfink is writing a letter to her brother, one of the leaders of the Austrian democracy, who was once minister for three months; Paula and Harry are enjoying a _tte--tte_ in the park, and Treurenberg is taking advantage of the strong sunlight to photograph alternately and from every point of view a half-ruinous fountain and two hollyhocks.
”Pray who is this Frulein Olga?” Fainacky asks, removing the ashes from the end of his cigarette with the long finger-nail of his little finger.
”Ah, it is quite a sad story,” is the Countess Selina's reply.
<script>