The Eichhofs Part 29

"Then you must be wet, too!" exclaimed Marzell, feeling the sleeve of his friend's coat. "Of course, drenched to the skin! And you were going to drive home in this condition, as if there were no dry things to be had here! I am, to be sure, rather stouter than you, and not quite so tall, but that's no matter. Come with me to my dressing-room. What were you about, to think of driving two miles to Eichhof in your wet clothes! You ought to have known that my entire wardrobe is at your service."

Wronsky's self-importance was vastly increased by his belief that he had surprised his admired friend in a small piece of stupidity, and by the certainty that he could save him, if not from any great misfortune, at least from a cold in his head. He was so innocently officious, so indescribably amiable, that Bernhard endured torments at the remembrance of the scene at the pond in the park. He felt thoroughly ashamed of himself, and he hoped and believed that Julutta would find some pretext for refusing to join the gentlemen. Instead of which she soon made her appearance in a kind of _neglige_, which was both elegant and bewitching, and her air and manner were not at all what Bernhard had supposed they would be. Her eyes sparkled, her cheeks glowed, and she was evidently under the influence of a joyous excitement, which annoyed Bernhard, and which he could not comprehend. She was brilliant in her conversation, and while talking with her husband frequently looked towards Bernhard. In much that she said there was a double meaning which could be perceived by Bernhard alone, and this secret understanding which she seemed thus to establish between herself and Bernhard in the presence of her unconscious husband became each moment more and more painful to Count Eichhof.

At last the storm had pa.s.sed, and he could order his carriage.

"I am glad you happened to come to-day," said Marzell, "for to-morrow I must go to my sister's again. You know that since her husband's death affairs are in terrible confusion over there, and I have my hands full in settling matters. I shall have to be away for some time; perhaps you will find time to come over and see my wife. She will be very lonely.

Eh, Julutta?"

"If it would not bore you, Count Eichhof." Her eyes had an arch sparkle in them, and there was a bewitching smile upon her lips, as, with one hand on her husband's shoulder, she extended the other to her guest, and said, with significant emphasis, "_Au revoir_."

Bernhard turned hurriedly away and got into his carriage. Wronsky had something to say to his inspector, and Julutta retired to her own room.

Here she walked to and fro for a few minutes in great agitation of mind. Then she seated herself at her writing-table, and drew forth the mute confidante of her thoughts and her life,--her diary. Her pen travelled swiftly over the paper. She wrote: "At last--at last my haughty Count is as wax in my hands, for I know now that he loves me. I could have trodden him in the dust at my feet to-day; but no, my triumph, my revenge, shall be prolonged! I will exult for a while longer in the consciousness that he loves me and suffers on my account.

My heart throbs fast at the thought. I scarcely know sometimes whether it is hate or love with which he inspires me. Love? Can I love? No; the tempest of my life has left me no heart that can love. And yet I find a strange discord in my mind. There is no need to put a force upon myself to treat him with gentleness and affection. If this means love, I have used it to minister to my hatred, for it has helped me to acquire a mastery over him. Yes, I have gained this mastery, and I shall know how to use it. I will listen to the confession of his love from his own proud lips that I may spurn him from me with contempt. And have I not just cause to hate him thus? Did he not trample beneath his feet the last remnant of my better self,--my pride? My pride was still mine. It drove me to leave Herr von Mohazy when I learned his treachery; it caused me to accept the hand of a country squire, but a man of honour, and thus to prove to myself and the world that I was not the outcast I was inclined to believe myself. And he--he, when I was more unfortunate than guilty, condemned me as utterly base, without even hearing me! Oh, I have suffered too deeply from this man's scorn ever to forget it! I resolved to requite him for this scorn. I would compel him to love me,--me, upon whom he looked down so proudly from the heights of his virtue; me, the wife of his friend. It was a bold scheme, but it has been successful. My meeting Mohazy and the Count's interference was a tie established between us. Then, when Mohazy left Berlin, I told my husband the story of my youth. I knew I could do it with safety, that his affection would find excuses for me. He did so, and I thus destroyed the only weapon which Bernhard Eichhof could turn against me.

But will Wronsky find excuses for this man,--this model of a haughty, virtuous aristocrat, who, in spite of his virtue, loves the wife of his friend? All his pride, all his virtue, I now hold like some toy in my hand. If I choose, I can toss it at his feet; and I will so choose. He will come and help me to complete my retribution. I know what men are."

Meanwhile Bernhard's thoughts, like restless night-moths, hovered about the woman whose hatred he never suspected, and whose love had, perhaps unconsciously to himself, inspired some of his dreams. Now the veil had dropped from his eyes, and at his feet yawned an abyss that threatened to bury in its depths honour, self-respect, and friendship. And this woman's white hand would have beckoned him on!

He thought of her coquettish glances, of the double meaning in her words, and this after that one supreme moment which had betrayed to both that they were not indifferent to each other. If she had been a true woman and wife would she not have recoiled in horror from the memory of that moment? Instead of which there was an inconceivable gleam of triumph in her eyes; and even when her husband, in unsuspecting cordiality, was inviting his friend to his house, she had known no shame, but had whispered significantly, "_Au revoir_."

Bernhard's brow contracted, and a cold hand seemed to clutch his heart.

"Oh, women, women!" he thought, and something akin to hatred stirred in his soul for Thea. Had she so looked, so smiled? He, to be sure, had made it all easier for her. He had not been by while she was coquetting with Lothar. His thoughts were unutterably bitter.

"I will not dwell upon the reason for those false smiles and glances to-day," he said to himself. "I will act the part of an honest man, and put an end to the whole affair. I did not know myself, and I will be upon my guard. Never talk to me again of friendship between man and woman."

Arrived at home, he looked over the letters that were awaiting him.

Among them was one from Thea. He knew that it could bring him nothing for which his heart longed, but nevertheless he opened it instantly.

She wrote briefly, almost in a business-like way, as was now her wont.

She should be at Eichhof at the end of a week, to arrange some affairs that needed her presence there. The boy, she wrote, would certainly be quite well by that time. He had been often ailing of late, but the physician had a.s.sured her that there was nothing serious the matter.

Bernhard tossed the letter impatiently aside. "She writes as if her coming to Eichhof needed an excuse!" he exclaimed, irritably, and took up a large letter postmarked 'Berlin.'

He opened it hurriedly, as one opens a business letter, in haste to be done with a disagreeable task. He first merely glanced at it, but his attention was soon arrested. He stared at the paper as though he could not appreciate its contents. But there, plainly to be seen, were the inexorable characters that announced to him the failure of the great banking-house upon whose support the railway scheme had chiefly depended. The prosecution of this scheme was simply an impossibility without the aid of this house; all the time and money hitherto expended upon it were of no avail, and Bernhard was personally a considerable loser by the failure. He saw the work of which he had thought to be so proud fall to pieces at one blow. Gone--gone; and yet perhaps something might still be done, some new plan adopted. At all events, his presence in Berlin was absolutely necessary. He had great influence there. He might effect something.

His self-respect, his confidence in his own strength of mind, had suffered a terrible blow with regard to Julutta. Could not something be done to restore these? If he could succeed in spite of all obstacles in putting new life into the ruined scheme, in securing the benefits it had promised to his part of the country, this would indeed be an achievement worthy of a struggle. And any struggle was welcome to him at present. He would cast aside all doubts and self-a.n.a.lysis and concentrate his thoughts upon one point. Yes, he would leave Eichhof by the earliest train on the morrow, and do his best to reanimate the lost enterprise.

In a short, courteous note he informed Frau von Wronsky that important business affairs called him for an indefinite time to Berlin, and that he must therefore ask her and her husband to excuse him if he did not appear at Panienka during the next few weeks. "That is ended and done with," he said, as he sealed the envelope, before ordering every arrangement to be made for Thea's reception and his own departure.

CHAPTER XXIII.

A SHORT CHAPTER, WITH A FAR GLANCE INTO THE FUTURE.

The Freiherr von Hohenstein sat on the veranda of his villa, puffing forth clouds of cigar-smoke, and looking down at his daughter, who stood at the bottom of the veranda steps surrounded by all sorts of animals. She had apparently just returned from riding, for a long dark-blue riding-habit clung closely to her pretty figure, and a high black hat, with a blue veil, sat jauntily upon her curling hair, which, loosened by her ride, was tumbling picturesquely over her shoulders.

With one hand she was feeding her horse, that still stood beside her, with sugar, and with the other she was stroking a tame fawn that nestled close to her. A young Newfoundland, Fidele's successor, was making clumsy efforts to attract her attention, and the sound of a shrill whistle, hardly permissible from such rosy lips, and yet not much out of keeping with Adela's general manner, brought the doves flying to her from all sides. Suddenly they fluttered away in terror: the dog began to bark angrily. Adela looked towards the garden-gate, and then, with a deep blush, ran up the veranda steps to say, "Papa, papa, it is Walter Eichhof!"

Yes, it was he; and as he offered Adela his hand, and she, still blushing crimson, cast down her eyes, both knew that neither was angry.

The Freiherr bade his guests welcome. He was now so convinced of his daughter's infallibility that he had not made the least objection when Adela had proposed to him to invite her old comrade to visit them, suggesting that Walter might conduct negotiations for the Freiherr with some Berlin publisher. Herr von Hohenstein was delighted with this idea, and, besides, he contemplated reading his work aloud to his guests; for although they knew nothing of the breeding of horses, yet they were two human beings who could sit still and listen, and more the author did not desire.

"I have a letter for you," Dr. Nordstedt said to Adela, after the first greetings were over. As soon as the girl received it she made it a pretext for slipping into the house, since, to her surprise, she seemed suddenly to have lost all her self-possession, and to be unable to take the satisfaction she had looked for in the visit she had so happily arranged.

She gave orders for the reception and comfort of her guests, and then retired to her own room, whence she could overlook the terrace in front of the house, and could hear Walter's voice through the open window.

There she stood, looking out and listening, with her hands clasped over her beating heart.

"He has come! he has come!" she thought, exultantly. Then she opened Alma's letter to glance through it, but the first lines arrested her attention. What was it? These were strange tidings indeed! This grave Dr. Nordstedt, for whom Adela entertained an immense respect, loved Alma Rosen, and had asked her to be his wife. Alma wrote, "Can you believe, dearest Adela, that he loves me? I seem to myself so little and silly that it is incredible to me; but it must be true, for he says so, and it makes me so proud and happy that I could shout for joy. But, when I think of one who is gone, I no longer rejoice. And so I have begged Friedrich--you know his name is Friedrich--to be only my friend for the present, and I have told him why I ask this. And he--oh, he is the best and n.o.blest man living!--he says he loves me the more for it, and will wait until I summon him. I have told him that you are my dearest friend, and that I should write all this to you, that you may not treat him like a stranger."

Adela stared at the sheet before her in absolute bewilderment. She was entirely unprepared tor its contents, for she had been far too much occupied with Walter and herself when in Berlin to have had any time for observation of Dr. Nordstedt and Alma. "Alma Nordstedt, Frau Dr.

Nordstedt," she whispered, shaking her head; "it sounds very odd!" She looked very thoughtful, but in an instant her face broke into smiles, and, alone as she was, she covered her face with her hands to hide her blushes.

When some hours later she was walking with her guests through the garden, she broke off an opening rosebud and offered it to Nordstedt.

"Imagine it a greeting from Alma," she whispered, with a smile.

"I thank you," he replied, simply, pressing her offered hand.

Walter stood by. Adela looked up at him, half shyly, half archly, but there was no rose for him.

Later in the evening, while Nordstedt and the Freiherr were playing a game of chess, the other two were walking along the same garden-path and by the same rose-bush.

"You gave me no rose to-day," Walter said, pausing in their stroll.

"From whom did you desire a greeting?" she asked him, mockingly.

"No one sends me any, and I expect none. But I have brought you something that looks like a greeting from the past. Will you not receive it as such?"

He held out the ring to her, and told her how it had been found.

"My ring! How strange!" exclaimed Adela. But she did not take it. She dropped the hand she had extended towards it, and said, half turning away her head, "The ring does not belong to me. I gave it away."

"You know I cannot keep it?"

"But I wish you to keep it."

Walter was silent for a moment, and then said, gently, "Adela, do you remember all I told you then?"

She silently a.s.sented, and he went on: "My plans and views are nowise altered; on the contrary, I am more than ever devoted to the profession I have chosen."

She gave him a sidelong glance. "Yes, I know it," she said; "and in two years you are to pa.s.s your examination."

"Adela, can you tell me that and yet wish me to keep this ring?"

He took her hand, but she withdrew it from his clasp.