Erlach Court Part 17

"Do not forget, madame, to bid the Baroness Meineck----" he begins, when the sound of a limping foot-fall strikes his ear. He turns hastily: it is Stella,--Stella in a white morning gown, her hair loosely twisted up, very pale, very charming, her eyes gazing large and grave from out her mobile countenance.

"Have you, too, made your appearance at last, you lazy little person?

'Tis very good of you, highly praiseworthy," the captain says, with a laugh to annul the effect of Stella's innocent eagerness.

A burst of laughter comes from the terrace.

"I hope you are duly gratified, Baron," a discordant voice calls out.

"When our little girl gets up at six o'clock it must be for a very grand occasion!"

Blushing painfully, Stella with difficulty restrains her tears; she says not a word, but stands there absolutely paralyzed with embarra.s.sment.

"I thank you from my heart for your kindness," Rohritz says, hastily approaching her. "I should have regretted infinitely not seeing you to say good-bye."

"You had a great deal of trouble with me yesterday, and were very patient," she manages to stammer. "Except Uncle Jack, no one has been so kind to me as you, since papa died, and I wanted to thank you for it."

He takes her soft, warm little hand in his and carries it to his lips.

"G.o.d guard you!" he murmurs.

"Hurry, or you will be too late!" the captain calls to him. He is going to accompany him to the station, and he fairly drags him away to the carriage.

The driver cracks his whip, the horses start off, Rohritz waves his hat for a last farewell, and the carriage vanishes behind the iron gates of the park.

"Poor Stella! poor Stella!" Stasy screams from the terrace, fairly convulsed with laughter. "Delightful fellow, Rohritz: he knows what he's about!"

But Stella covers her burning face with her hands. "I will go into a convent," she says; "there at least I shall be able to conduct myself properly."

Meanwhile, Rohritz and the captain roll on towards the station. They are both silent.

"He is desperately in love with her," thinks the captain. "Is he really too poor to marry, I wonder?"

Yes, it is true Rohritz is desperately in love with her; she hovers before his eyes in all her loveliness like a vision. He would fain stretch out his arms to her, but he is perpetually tormented by the persistent question, "Whom does she resemble?" Suddenly he knows. The knowledge almost paralyzes him!

Beside the pure, fresh vision of Stella he sees leaning over a black-haired, vagabond-looking man at the roulette-table at Baden-Baden the hectic ruin of a woman who has been magnificently beautiful, a woman with painted cheeks and with deep lines about her eyes and mouth,--otherwise the very image of Stella.

Twelve years since he had seen her thus, and upon asking who she was had been told that she was the mistress of the Spanish violinist Correze, and that she was little by little sacrificing her entire fortune to gratify the artist's love of gaming. His informant added that she was a woman of birth and position, and that she had left her husband and child in obedience to the promptings of pa.s.sion. He did not know her husband's name: she called herself then Madame Correze.

Why do all Stasy's malicious remarks about Stella's unpleasant connections, and about the Meineck temperament, crowd into his mind?

There is no denying that Stella is lacking in a certain kind of reserve.

While he is waiting with the captain beneath the vine-wreathed shed of the station for the train which has just been signalled, these hateful thoughts refuse to be banished. He suddenly asks his friend, who stands smoking; in silence beside him,--

"What is the story about your sister's sister-in-law to which Fraulein von Gurlichingen so often alludes? Was she the same Eugenie Meineck to whom you were once devoted?"

"Yes," the captain makes reply, half closing his eyes, "and she was a charming, enchanting creature; Stella reminds me of her. No one has a good word for her now, but there was a time when it was impossible to pet and praise her enough."

"What became of her?"

"She fell into bad--or rather into incapable--hands. She married an elderly man who did not know how to manage her. Good heavens! the best horse stumbles under a bad rider, and----"

"Well, and----?"

"She had not been married long when she ran off with a Spanish musician, a coa.r.s.e fellow, who beat her, and ran through her property.

He was quite famous. His name was--was----" The captain snaps his fingers impatiently.

"Correze?" Rohritz interposes.

"Yes, that is it,--Correze!"

At this moment the train arrives.

"All kind messages to the ladies at Erlach Court, and many thanks for your hospitality, Jack!" Rohritz says, jumping into the coupe.

"I hope we shall see you soon again, old fellow; but--hm!--have you no message for my foolish little Stella?" asks the captain.

"I hope with all my heart that she may soon fall into good hands!"

Rohritz says, with emphasis, in a hard vibrant voice.

And the train whizzes away.

"The deuce!" thinks the captain; "there's but a slim chance for the poor girl. Good heavens! if I loved Stella and my circ.u.mstances did not allow of my marrying, I'd take up some profession. But Rohritz is too fine a gentleman for that."

Meanwhile, Rohritz leans back discontentedly in the corner of an empty coupe.

"A charming, bewitching creature,--Stella resembles her," he murmurs to himself. "She married an elderly man from pique, and so on." He lights a cigar and puffs forth thick clouds of smoke. "She might not have married me from pique, but from loneliness, from grat.i.tude for a little sympathy. And if Zino had come across her later on---- I was on the point of losing my head. Thank G.o.d it is over!"

He sat still for a while, his head propped upon his hand, and then found that his cigar had gone out. With an impatient gesture he tossed it out of the window.

"I could not have believed I should have had such an attack at my years," he muttered. He set his teeth, and his face took on a resolute expression. "It must he," he said to himself.

Outside the wind sighed among the trees and in the tall meadow-gra.s.s.

It sounded to him like the sobbing of his rejected happiness.

CHAPTER XV.

SCATTERED.

Summer has gone. The birds are silent; brown leaves cover the green gra.s.s, falling thicker and thicker from the weary trees; long, white gossamers float in the damp, oppressive air: the autumn is weaving a shroud for the dying year.

Scared by the whistling blasts and the floods of rain, the swallows have a.s.sembled in dark flocks; they are seen in long rows on the telegraph-wires in eager twittering discussion of their approaching flight, and then, the next morning, early, before the lingering autumn sun has opened its drowsy eyes, the heavens are black with their flying squadrons.

But the final death-struggle is not yet over, the warmth in all vegetation is not yet chilled; bright flowers still bloom at the feet of the fast-thinning trees, and, shaking the falling leaves from their cups, laugh up at the blue skies.