Part 26 (2/2)
”But you do not like her!” Lato now rivets his eyes full upon the gloomy face of his former playmate.
Harry turns away his head.
”I did not say I did not like her,” he bursts out, ”but I can't talk of her, because--because it is all her fault!”
”What is 'all'?” asks Lato, still looking fixedly at his friend.
Harry frowns and says nothing.
Lato does not speak again for a few moments. Then, having lighted a fresh cigar, he begins: ”I always fancied,--one so often arranges in imagination a friend's future for him, particularly when one's own fate is fixed past recall,--I always said to myself that you and your cousin would surely come together. I liked to think that it would be so. To speak frankly, your betrothal to Paula was a great surprise to me.”
”Indeed? Well, so it was to me!” Harry blurts out, then turns very red, is ashamed of his unbecoming confession; and then--then he is glad that it has been extorted from him; glad that he can speak frankly about the affair to any one with whom he can take counsel.
Treurenberg draws a long breath, and then whistles softly to himself.
”Sets the wind in that quarter?” he says at last. ”I thought so. I determined that you should show your colours. And may I ask how you ever got into such a confounded sc.r.a.pe?”
Harry groans. ”What would you have?--moonlight, nervous excitement,--all of a sudden there we were! I had quarrelled with my cousin Zdena--G.o.d bless her! In spite of her whims and fancies,--one never knows what she would be at,--she is the dearest, loveliest creature----! But that is only by the way----”
”Not at all, not at all; it interests me extremely,” Treurenberg interrupts him, laughing.
”That may be, but it has very little to do with my explanation,” Harry rejoins, dryly. ”The fact is, that it was a warm night in August, and I was driving alone with Paula,--that is, with no coachman, and only my groom, who followed with my horse, and whom I entirely forgot,--from Zirkow to Dobrotschau, along that rough forest road,--you remember,--where one is jolted against one's companion at every step, and there is opportunity for a girl to be becomingly timid--h'm! She suddenly became frightened at a will-o'-the-wisp, she never struck me before as having such weak nerves,--and--well, I was distraught over my quarrel with Zdena, and I had taken perhaps a gla.s.s too much of Uncle Paul's old Bordeaux; in short, I kissed her. In an instant I recollected myself, and, if I am not mistaken, I said, 'Excuse me!' or, 'I beg pardon!' She cannot have heard this extremely sensible remark, however, for in the twinkling of an eye I was betrothed. The next day I was determined to put an end to such nonsense, and I sat down at my writing-table--confound it all! I never was great with the pen, and the model of such a letter as I wanted to write was not to be found in any 'Complete Letter-Writer.' Everything I tried to put on paper seemed to me so terribly indelicate and rough, and so I determined to tell the mother. I meant to bring forward a previous and binding attachment; to plead in my excuse the superlative charms of the Baroness Paula--oh, I had it all splendidly planned; but the old Baroness never let me open my lips, and so matters came to be arranged as you find them.”
Through the open gla.s.s doors of the dining-room, across the flower-beds, comes the faint voice of the old piano. But it is no longer echoing the 'Cloches du Monastere,' but a wailing canzonetta by some popular local composer upon which the youngest Leskjewitsch is expending a most unnecessary amount of banging upon keys and pressing of pedals. With a grimace Harry stops his ears. Treurenberg looks very grave.
”You do not, then, intend to marry Paula?”
”G.o.d forbid!” Harry exclaims.
”Then,”--Lato bites his lip, but goes on calmly,--”forgive an old friend who is aware of the difficulty of your position, for the disagreeable remark,--but if you do not intend to marry my sister-in-law, your conduct with regard to her is not only very unbecoming but also positively wrong.”
”Why?” Harry asks, crossly.
”Why?” Lato lifts his eyebrows. ”Why, because you compromise her more deeply with every visit you pay her. You cannot surely deceive yourself as to the fact that upon the superficial observer you produce the impression of an unusually devoted pair of lovers.”
”I do not understand how you can say such a thing!” Harry exclaims, angrily, ”when you must have seen----”
”That you are on the defensive with Paula,” Treurenberg interrupts him, with a wan smile. ”Yes, I have seen it.”
”Well, she ought to see it too,” Harry mutters.
Lato shrugs his shoulders.
”She must lose patience sooner or later,” says Harry.
”It is difficult to exhaust the patience of a young woman whose sensibilities are not very delicate and who is very much in love,”
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