Part 11 (1/2)
”How romantic! I see only his usually melancholy sheep's-eyes,” said Magelone. ”He stares at me, but it is a question whether he sees me.
Others, on the contrary, see too much; discover that we, that is, you and I, are flirting with each other.”
”Flirting!” he interrupted her. ”How can my serious devotion----”
”Oh, hus.h.!.+” she cried. ”You know grandpapa's plans. Johann Leopold's future betrothed must listen to nothing of that kind. You ought to court Johanna.”
”It pleases my sovereign to jest,” said Otto, bending over her with a smile.
”Not at all,” she rejoined. ”I am rather laying my commands upon my slave to turn his talent to account.”
He bowed again. ”The command shall be obeyed,” he said. ”Moreover, obedience will not be difficult. Cousin Johanna has improved wonderfully in appearance.”
Magelone glanced hastily towards Johanna. ”You are right: she has gained life and colour;” and she added, mentally, ”Is he trying to make me jealous? He shall not succeed.”
In spite of this resolution, she could not away with a slightly disagreeable sensation when, sitting beside Johann Leopold at table, she noticed the a.s.siduity with which Otto, who was Johanna's neighbour, obeyed her command, and how Johanna's eyes sparkled as she talked with her cousin. If Magelone could only have revenged herself upon him! But words, looks, and smiles were lavished in vain upon Johann Leopold, who was as monosyllabic as ever.
After dinner, in the drawing-room, Otto came to Magelone just as she was going to join Aunt Thekla and her cousins around the fire. ”Not there,”
he entreated; ”come to the piano; it is so long since I heard you play.”
”Lost pains,” was her laughing reply, as she followed him to the other end of the room. ”You never will convince me that you care for music.
Did you ever really know what I was playing?”
”And if I did not, it was your fault. How can I think of aught else but your beauty, which has so bewitched me, you enchanting siren?”
”Ah, you're wrong. Sirens enchant chiefly by their song,” she rejoined in a teasing tone, as she sat down at the piano and struck a few chords. ”Well, Sir Enthusiast for music, what will you have?”
”Play anything; never mind what.”
”Last autumn you had a pa.s.sion for Chopin,--have you forgotten? Do you no longer recognize your favourite?”
She began to play. Otto sat beside her and turned over the leaves of her music when she signed to him to do so. As often as he leaned forward she felt, with a thrill, his breath upon her neck, and sometimes he whispered, so low as to be almost inaudible, a word or two in jest in which there seemed a tone of suppressed pa.s.sion.
”Does he conduct himself thus towards Johanna?” she asked herself.
”Impossible!” her vanity made reply, and the _berceuse_ which she was playing a.s.sumed the character of a triumphal march.
The moods of the group around the fire were less harmonious. The Freiherr had retired immediately after dinner; the brothers Wildenhayn and Johann Leopold, engaged in a political discussion, had withdrawn to such a distance that they could not overhear the ladies' conversation, and Hildegard soothed her injured feelings by animadverting upon Johanna's position in the family.
It was certainly a matter of course that grandpapa should take charge of the dest.i.tute orphan, since in a certain sense she was one of the family; but was there any need to treat her as an equal? It was not only an insult to the other members of the family, it was an injury to Johanna herself. It would end in her forgetting her true position; she would learn to form expectations which could not be fulfilled hereafter, and she would lose by her arrogance the regard of the relatives upon whom, after grandpapa's death, she must needs be dependent.
”I do not think you are right there,” Aunt Thekla at last interposed, having long tried in vain to oppose her gentle remonstrances to the torrent of Hildegard's speech. ”My brother is sure to provide for Johanna.”
”I think so too,” cried Hedwig; ”and I wonder, Hildegard, that you do not see it yourself. After grandpapa's giving her that valuable _parure_----”
”Yes, that _parure_!” Hildegard interposed. ”With all your prejudice in the girl's favour, you must admit, dear aunt, that grandmamma's bridal _parure_ does not belong of right to her. She can do nothing with it; she never can wear it. She does not belong in society; even grandpapa could hardly succeed in introducing an actor's daughter.”
Hildegard spoke these last words in a voice intentionally raised; for Johanna, who had been preparing the coffee as usual at the table before the sofa, was just pa.s.sing with the first cup for Aunt Thekla. The trembling of her hand betrayed that she had heard the malicious remark, and Hildegard looked after her exultantly as she returned to the coffee-table.
But Johann Leopold had also heard and seen, and he came to Johanna's a.s.sistance.
”Dear Magelone,” he said, going to the piano,--the _berceuse_ was just ended, and Otto was expressing his admiration for the music and for the performer,--”dear Magelone, will you preside at the coffee-table to-day?
Johanna has exhausted herself with Christmas-eve preparations; she looks terribly pale and weary.”