Clear the Track! Part 10

"In the enjoyments of life, I wanted to say."

"Nevertheless I expressed your thought, and alas! I must own that you are right. But I never was attracted by activity on any but a large scale, and my inheritance was no vast estate adequate to bring this impulse into play. I could not bear to bury myself in barren monotony of every-day country life, in the wearisome round of a management that any good overseer could conduct as well as myself. I was not made for that sort of thing."

"Why, then, did you not stay in the diplomatic service?" remarked Dernburg. "Certainly there was a field commensurate with the widest ambition."

It was an expression of unspeakable bitterness that curled Wildenrod's lips at this question, to be sure only for a second, when he quietly replied:

"Personal considerations were to blame. I had had disagreements with the chief of the bureau, believed myself slighted and overlooked, hence rashly broke my supposed chains, in a fit of sensitiveness. I was still young at that time, and the wide world with its dreams of a golden future, attracted me irresistibly--how the prospect changes, with the lapse of time! I have long since felt that my life lacked serious purpose and will feel this yet more sensibly after Cecilia leaves me.

Deep dissatisfaction results from leading such an existence."

"For which you have to bear the sole responsibility, yourself," said Dernburg gravely. "You are still in the enjoyment of a full manly vigor, you have an independent fortune--Only come to a resolve."

"Quite right, a resolve is what is needed, and yet that is precisely what I have not been able to make up my mind to. To me toil and industry ever presented themselves under the image of what was small and wearisome. Here, in sight of your Odensburg, I comprehend for the first time, what a power lies in it, and what incredible results it can achieve. That could stir me up too, engage my every power, I admit.

Will you kindly afford 'the idler,' Herr Dernburg, a deeper insight into your world of work? Perhaps he may yet profit by the lesson."

There was something uncommonly winning in this request and the whole manner of the Baron, and Dernburg was very agreeably impressed by this candor. His. .h.i.therto rather cool civility gave way now to a warmer tone, as he answered:

"I shall be delighted if Odensburg gives you such lessons. I indeed have had to plow my way through all the pettiness and weariness of routine. If I had not bestirred head and arms, probably the simple forge bequeathed me by my father, would still be standing here--but then, everybody need not handle a spade with one's own hands. If everybody only does something, and fills the place allotted him in life that is the main thing after all."

CHAPTER VI.

TO WHICH MORE THAN ONE CHARMER CHARMS.

In the parlors, meanwhile, Cecilia formed the center of the group drawn up around the fireplace. She could be very amiable when she pleased, and her young sister-in-law was perfectly enchanted by her, while Eric who, to-day in general, had neither eyes nor ears for any one but his betrothed, hardly stirred from her side. Only Egbert Runeck took no part in the conversation. He looked out upon the terrace where those two gentlemen were engaged in such lively conversation, and then again his eyes rested upon the young Baroness; but in doing so his brow contracted almost threateningly.

"No, Eric, you need not try to persuade me that there ever is any spring here in your fatherland," exclaimed Cecilia laughing. "On the Riviera flowers have been blooming and diffusing sweet odors for months past; but since we have crossed the Alps, we have had nothing but storms and cold. And now, to crown all, this ride to Odensburg!

Everywhere wintry wastes, nothing but the melancholy green of these everlasting fir-forests, besides mist and clouds and, for a change, sleety rain! Dear me! how I freeze in your cold, gray Germany."

She shivered, every movement she made, somehow adding charms to her nave beauty, and then turned to the fire:

"In your Germany?" repeated Eric with tender reproach in his tone.

"But, Cecilia, it is your Germany as well!"

"Of course it is, but I always have to put myself in mind, before I can realize that I am actually a child of this hateful North, where I am such a total stranger. I was hardly eight years old, when my father died, and two years later I lost my mother also. Then I was carried first to relations in Austria, and later to Lausanne, where I went to boarding-school. When I grew up, Oscar took me away, and since then we have lived mostly in the South. At Rome and Naples, the Riviera and Florence, in Switzerland, too, we have been a few times, and once in France. But Germany we have never come near!"

"Poor Cecilia! so you have never had a home!" cried Maia, compa.s.sionately.

Cecilia looked at her in great astonishment; such a life of vanity as she had led, continually changing both her society and surroundings seemed to her the only enviable one.

Home! That was quite a novel idea to her. Her eyes took a hasty survey of the parlor where they sat--yes, indeed, it wore an entirely different air from the gay and yet commonplace hotel-apartments, in which she had been living for years.

Those rich dark tapestries and curtains, that oaken furniture, every piece of which had an artistic value--the family portraits on the walls, and above all the breath of comfort that pervaded the whole!

But, on the other hand, all this appeared so somber and dark, in the light of this gray, rainy day--as grave as all the people here, with the solitary exception of Maia--and the spoilt child of the world inwardly shuddered at the thought of her bridegroom's "home."

"Do you really and truly spend the largest part of the year here at Odensburg?" asked she. "It must be very monotonous. You have such a handsome residence in Berlin, as Eric has told me, and you hardly spend two months in the winter there. I do not understand it."

"My father think he has no time to move around the world," said Maia, in a wholly unembarra.s.sed manner--"and I have only been a few times to the Baths with my aunt and governess. I like it here at Odensburg."

"Maia has not been introduced into society yet," explained Eric. "She is to come out next winter, for the first time, for she has completed her seventeenth year. Until now little sister has always had to stay up in the nursery, even when we had a large reception at home; and as to city life, she knows nothing of it whatever."

"I went into society when I was sixteen," remarked Cecilia. "Poor Maia, to think of their keeping you waiting so long--it is incomprehensible?"

The young girl laughed merrily at being the object of such genuine commiseration.

"Oh, I do not consider that as such a great misfortune, for then I must 'behave' myself as Miss Friedberg calls it, must be so dreadfully prim and staid, and no longer dance around with Puck--why, Puck! I do believe you have gone to sleep in broad daylight! Are you not ashamed?

Will you wake up, I say!"

Therewith she rushed to one corner of the parlor, where Puck, greatly discontented at so little attention being paid him to-day, lay on a footstool, having yielded himself to the sweetest of slumbers.

Cecilia's lip curled.

"Maia is nothing but a child, sure enough!" said she in an aside to Eric. "Well, Oscar, has the rain driven you in?"

"Yes, indeed," answered Wildenrod who had just come in. "We have been inspecting Odensburg, for the present, only from the terrace, but, Eric, your father has promised to introduce me into his realm within the next few days."

"Certainly, and Cecilia must get acquainted with it too," chimed in Eric. "Then we'll drive out, some day, to Radefeld, too, where the Buchberg is being tunneled." "Egbert," said he, turning to that young man, who had sat by, a silent listener, "you observe that we are inviting ourselves to pay you a visit some day."

"I am only afraid that our works will not interest Herr von Wildenrod,"

answered Egbert. "Externally they have very little of interest to show, and, as for the rest, we have not come to the tunneling yet."

Wildenrod turned to the young engineer, who had of course been presented to him upon his arrival. He knew through Eric that this friend of his youth occupied an anomalous position, but his presence here upon occasion of this exclusively family-party surprised him none the less, and he knew too how to give expression to this surprise.

Through all the politeness, with which he treated Runeck, there was ever clearly transparent in his eyes the question: "What business have you here?"

"You sketched the plan for these works, did you not, Herr Runeck?" he asked. "Eric has spoken to me about it, and I am glad to make the acquaintance of so clever an engineer."

The words sounded very obliging, but the "engineer" was emphasized and thereby the barrier raised that separated the son of the worker in iron from the family of the millionaire, however much they might see fit to ignore this at Odensburg. Egbert bowed just as obligingly, while he replied:

"I have already had the pleasure of making your acquaintance, Herr von Wildenrod."

"Mine? I do not remember that we ever met before."

"That is comprehensible, for it took place at a large party--three years ago in Berlin--at the house of Frau von Sarewski."

The Baron p.r.i.c.ked up his ears, and fixed his keen eyes searchingly upon the young engineer, but at the same time a mocking smile played about his lips.

"And so you saw me there? Really, I would not have expected you to move in such circles."

"Nor do I, in fact. It was an exceptional case, and I was not there as a guest, either. Perhaps you may remember the circ.u.mstance if I recall the day to your mind--it was the twentieth of September."

The hand which rested on the back of Cecilia's chair trembled slightly, and at the same time there flashed from Wildenrod's eyes a glance of suspicion, that was threatening as well, but it produced no effect upon the perfectly unmoved features of Runeck. It lasted, indeed, only a second; then the Baron said carelessly:

"You really expect too much of my memory. I have really been introduced to so many people traveling about as much as I have done these last ten years, that I no longer distinguish individuals. What circ.u.mstance do you allude to?"

He spoke with perfect composure, not the slightest change being perceptible in his features, although those dark gray eyes of his were fastened fixedly upon Runeck, with an expression of threatening determination.

"If you have forgotten it, sir, it is hardly worth while to recur to it," said Egbert coolly. "But your features and individuality impressed themselves upon me in a manner that I have never forgotten."