Dame Care Part 16

Mrs. Douglas, smiling, beckoned him to come to her. She seized his hand and stroked it. "You have grown tall and good-looking," she said, in her weak, kind voice, "and you have a beautiful beard."

"But do call him '_Du_,'" interrupted his mother, who seemed to be much easier in her mind than usual. "Paul, ask your G.o.dmother."

"Yes--I entreat you," said Paul, stammering and blushing anew.

"G.o.d bless you, my son," said Mrs. Douglas; "you have deserved it," and then her head again sank against the trunk of the tree.

Paul stood behind the bench and did not know what to do. For the first time since he was grown up he happened to find himself in strange society.

His glance met Elsbeth's, who, resting her head on her hand, looked round at him.

"I suppose you won't say 'How do you do' to me at all?" she added, mischievously.

The familiar "_Du_" gave him courage. He stretched his hand out to her, and asked how she had fared during all this long time.

A shade of sadness flitted across her face. "Not well," she said, softly; "but more of that later on when we are alone."

She made room at her side, and said, "Come." And as he sat down near her his elbow touched her neck. Then a thrill went through his body, such as he had never felt in all his life.

Leo h.e.l.ler shook hands with him across the table, and said, laughing, "To our good friendship, you pattern boy, you!"

"I am, unfortunately, not worthy to be taken for a pattern boy," he answered, innocently.

"Then be glad; I am not one, either. Nothing is more disgusting to me than such a pattern boy."

"Why, then, did you call me so?"

Leo looked at him quite surprised. "Oh, you seem to take everything literally," he said.

"Pardon me, I am so little accustomed to joking," he replied, and a blush of shame rose to his face. In turning towards Elsbeth he saw that she was gazing at him with a strangely earnest, searching look. Then a sudden feeling of bliss rose in his soul. He felt here was one who did not think him stupid or ridiculous, who understood his nature and the laws according to which it manifested itself.

While the three were silent his father, at the other end of the table, continued to expound the plans of his company to Mr. Douglas.

"And if you trust me, sir--but no, you need not even do that--I mean to say, if you will not frivolously forfeit your own chance--one must never stand in the way of one's chance, sir--if you have only just a little spirit of enterprise--oh, then, yes, then, you know, there are hundreds and thousands to be earned; the moor is inexhaustible--why let others grow rich in your stead, sir? On through darkness to light; that's my device. I will strive and fight to the last breath; it is not my own interest which is at stake. It seems to me to be a question for the welfare of humanity. The aim is to win this barren soil for cultivation, to give new life-blood to this whole district, to change the poverty of this country into prosperity--to be a benefactor to humanity, sir."

And in this tone he swaggered on.

Then suddenly he came quite close to Douglas, as if he wanted to put a pistol to his head, crying,

"Then will you take shares in it sir?"

Douglas caught a glance from his wife, who quietly pointed towards Frau Elsbeth, and made him a beseeching sign; then he said, half amused, half angry, "I don't mind."

Paul was again ashamed, for he read in Douglas's face that for him it was only a question of the fun of throwing a few hundred thalers out of the window. He himself knew, too well, that no sensible man could take his father's plans in earnest.

"Have you not seen our girls, Paul?" asked his mother, who now seemed no less constrained than he.

No; he had not seen them anywhere.

"Do go and look about for them; they have gone to the dancing-ground.

Tell them not to be too wild, or else they will catch cold."

Paul rose.

"I will go with you," said Elsbeth.

"May I not come too, little cousin?" asked cousin Leo.

"You had better remain here," she answered, lightly, whereupon he declared he should be obliged to kill himself for grief.

"A merry bird," said Paul, with a sigh of envy, as he walked at her side through the crowd.

"Yes; but nothing more," she replied.

"Do you like him?"

"Certainly; very much.

"She will marry him, after all," Paul meditated.

All around people screamed and shouted. A lantern had caught fire, and a troop of young fellows endeavored to tear it from the cord. Flaming pieces of paper were flying through the air, and the liquid was spirted in all directions.

Elsbeth put her arm in his and bent her head on his shoulder. Again that blissful thrill which he could not explain ran through him.

"There, now I am safe," she said, in a whisper. "Come to the wood afterwards, Paul, I have so much to tell you; there we shall be undisturbed."

And as she said this he felt quite anxious, out of pure joy.

They had come to the dancing-place. The trumpets resounded, and the dancers were spinning round and round.

"Shall we dance, too?" she asked, smiling.

"I cannot," he answered.

"That does not matter," she said; "for those sort of things Leo does well enough."

His foolish dreams which he had had under the juniper-bush to-day occurred to him.

"So it is with everything that I fancy to myself," he thought. "I have still one of your books, Elsbeth," he said then.

"I know, I know," she answered, looking up at him with a smile.

"Pardon me that I--"

"Oh, what a fidget you are," she jested. "Leo meanwhile has ruined my whole library for me, and wants me now to replenish it for him, because he has nothing more to read."

Leo, and still Leo over again.

"Have you read much that is beautiful in it?" she asked him.