The Northern Light Part 18

Wallmoden looked after him with knitted brow, and then turned to his sister. "Could you not have restrained yourself, Regine? Why make a scene? This Hartmut exists no more for us."

Regine's face showed clearly her intense excitement, and her lips trembled as she answered:

"I am no such staid diplomat as you, Herbert. I have not yet learned to be calm and indifferent when one whom I have for years imagined dead, or gone to ruin, suddenly springs up before me."

"Dead? He was too young to make that a probability. Gone to ruin? That is indeed possible, judging from his life lately."

"What do you mean?" asked his sister excitedly. "What do you know of his life?"

"I know something of it. Falkenried is too dear to me to make me lose sight altogether of his son. I have never mentioned what I knew to either of you. But as soon as I returned to my post, ten years ago, I used my diplomatic position to ascertain what I could concerning them."

"And what did you learn?"

"At first, only what we already knew, that Zalika had taken her son to Roumania. You knew that her step-father, our cousin Wallmoden, had died some time before, and after her divorce from Falkenried she always lived with her mother. From that time we heard nothing of her until she came to Germany to capture her son, but just before she came, as I learned, she inherited a large fortune by the death of her brother."

"Her brother? I never knew she had one."

"Yes, he was ten years her senior, and on attaining his majority had become master of a large estate. His mother's second marriage was childless and he never married. When he met with a sudden death while hunting, Zalika, being next of kin, fell heir to his large possessions.

As soon as she entered into possession, she began at once to plan how she could get her son. You know that part of the story. Then they pa.s.sed a few years in a wild, erratic life upon her Roumania estate, and they fairly flung money away in their extravagance. After that they became bankrupt, and mother and son went out into the world like gypsies."

Wallmoden told all this in the same cold, contemptuous tone as that in which he had spoken to Hartmut and in Regine's face, too, was a look of abhorrence for the wife and mother who had fulfilled so ill the duties of her station. But she could not restrain the anxiety she felt for the son, as she asked:

"And since then? Have you heard nothing further?"

"Yes, on several occasions. Once when I was with the emba.s.sy at Florence, I heard her name mentioned incidentally. She was at Rome; then a year after that she was back in Paris again; and sometime later I heard that Frau Zalika Rojanow was dead."

"So she is dead," said Regine, softly. "How did they live all these years?"

Wallmoden shrugged his shoulders. "How do all adventurers live? Perhaps they had saved something from the shipwreck, perhaps they hadn't. At any rate she was to be found in the saloons of Rome and Paris. A woman like Zalika could always find a.s.sistance and protection. As a Bojar's daughter she had her t.i.tle of n.o.bility, and even the forced sale of her Roumanian estate, about which many knew, may have aided her to play her _role_. Society opens its arms only too willingly to such as she, especially when they have talent, and that Zalika undoubtedly had. By what means she lived is another question."

"But Hartmut, upon whom she forced such a life, what of him?"

"He's an adventurer. What else could you expect?" said the amba.s.sador in his curtest tone. "He inherited her temperament, and his life with her has developed the dormant tendency. Since his mother's death, three years ago, I have heard nothing of him."

"And why did you keep all this from me?" said Regine, reprovingly.

"I wanted to spare you all I could. You had always given the boy too warm a place in your heart, and I thought it better to let you imagine him dead. Have you ever told Falkenried any of your idle speculations concerning him?"

"Once I ventured to speak of the past to him. I hoped to break through the icy reserve which he always maintains towards me now. He looked at me, I will not soon forget his eyes, and said with fearful impressiveness: 'My son is dead. You know that, Regine. We will let the dead rest in peace.' I have never mentioned Hartmut's name since then."

"I suppose I hardly need counsel you to be silent when we return home,"

continued her brother. "On no account let Willibald hear of this meeting, for he's so good-natured that he'd be off at once if he heard his boyhood's friend was in the neighborhood. It's much better he should know nothing about it. If there should be a second meeting I will just ignore the fellow. Adelheid does not know him; in fact she doesn't even know that Falkenried had a son."

He broke off suddenly and arose, for his young wife and her escort emerged at that moment from the tower door. The prince greeted the amba.s.sador and his sister, whom he had met a day or two before, and asked quite innocently whether they had seen his friend Rojanow, who had disappeared from the tower a few moments before.

Wallmoden threw a warning glance toward his sister, who stared at the prince in surprise, and answered promptly and politely that he had seen no gentleman, and added that he was just on the point of going in search of his wife, as it was quite time they should return home. The order to the groom was given at once, and a minute later the prince was bowing low to the fair woman and her husband, whom he had accompanied to the carriage. He stood a full minute looking after them when the carriage rolled away.

Hartmut stood at the window of the little public room looking at the trio in the carriage, also.

On his face lay the same deadly pallor as when the name of Wallmoden was mentioned two days before, but to-day it was the pallor of a wild, intense anger. He had steeled himself against question or reproof; these he would have met with supercilious arrogance, but the contemptuous manner in which he had been set aside struck him to his heart's core.

Wallmoden's words to his sister, "We do not know him. Must I repeat that again?" incited his whole being to revolt. He felt keenly the sentence which lay in them. And Aunt Regine, too, the woman who had once shown an almost motherly affection for him, she turned her back on him as if ashamed of her first impulse to speak to him. That was too much!

"Oh, here you are at last," sounded Egon's voice from the door. "You disappeared most mysteriously. Well, did you find your pocket-book?"

Hartmut turned toward his friend; he felt he must be on his guard.

"Yes," he said absently. "I found it on the stair, as I expected."

"You might as well have let the watchman get it for you. But why didn't you come back? 'Twas very shabby of you to desert Frau von Wallmoden and me. You have not, I fear, won the lovely lady's favor. You were most ungracious."

"I shall have to endure my misfortune as best I can," said Hartmut with a shrug.

The young prince came nearer, and laid his hand affectionately on his shoulder.

"Or perhaps you incurred her displeasure day before yesterday? It is not your wont to go off on a tangent when you are conversing with a charming woman. O, I know all about it; the baroness thought fit to reprove you for your attack on Germany, and you resented it. Now, a man should agree to everything which comes from such lips."

"You seem to be quite excited," sneered Hartmut. "Better look to it that the gray-haired husband does not grow jealous, in spite of his years."

"Yes, they're a singular couple," said Egon, half aloud, as if lost in thought. "This old diplomat, with his gray hair and his keen, immobile face, and the young wife with her dazzling beauty like a--like a--"

"Northern light, above a sea of ice. It is a question which of the two is farthest below freezing point."

Prince Egon laughed out at the comparison. "Very poetical and very malicious. But you are right enough. I felt the icy breath of this polar star several times myself. It's just as well I did, for it is all that saved me from falling head over heels in love with her. But I think we'd better be starting now, don't you?" He turned to the door to order the groom to bring around the horses.

Hartmut, on the point of following him, turned once more to glance from the window at the carriage, which could be seen through an opening in the trees. He clenched his fist as he muttered:

"We will speak yet, Herr von Wallmoden. I will remain now. He shall not imagine that I am a coward and flee from him. Egon shall bring my work to the notice of the court. We shall see then whether he will dare to treat me like an adventurer. He shall pay yet for that glance and tone."

CHAPTER VII.

At Furstenstein everything was in readiness for the reception of the Court. The ducal party was coming this autumn for the entire hunting season, which lasted for several weeks, and the d.u.c.h.ess was expected as well. The second floor of the castle, with its countless rooms, was prepared for the ill.u.s.trious guests, and some of the officials and servants had already arrived. The little town of Waldhofen, through which the duke would pa.s.s, was in a state of excitement, too, as the townspeople made their modest preparations to do the great man honor.

The Wallmodens had come for a short visit, but under existing circ.u.mstances, decided to prolong it; in fact the duke himself, learning of their whereabouts, and desirous of showing the amba.s.sador and his wife some especial mark of his favor, had expressed a desire to meet them at Furstenstein. This amounted to an invitation which it would have been unwise to refuse.

Frau von Eschenhagen and her son were to remain also, to have an opportunity of "viewing these Court people close at hand." The head forester, in view of the prospective hunting which was his especial care, had daily interviews with the under foresters and their subordinates, and kept them all pretty well on their legs, that nothing might be neglected. Life at the castle just at present was anything but monotonous. In Fraulein von Schonau's room, this bright morning, there were sounds of gay chatter, and many a clear, good-natured laugh.

Marietta Volkmar had come for a little gossip with her old friend, and as usual during such visits, the laughter and the babble knew no end.

Toni sat in the window-seat, and near her stood Willibald, who, by his mother's special orders, was to play the _role_ of sentinel.

Frau von Eschenhagen had not yet been able to accomplish her purpose concerning the opera singer. Her brother-in-law had remained obdurate, and even from her future daughter, whom she imagined so pliant, she had met with decided resistance when she demanded that all intercourse should be broken off between the two. "I cannot do that, dear auntie.

You ask too much," Toni had answered. "Marietta is so n.o.ble and good. I could not wound her so deeply."

"n.o.ble and good!" Frau Regine shrugged her shoulders over the inexperience of this girl whose eyes she might not open; but she was diplomatic enough to let the subject drop for the present and bide her time. Willibald, accustomed to confide in his mother, had told her of his meeting with Fraulein Volkmar, and how he had enacted the part of porter at her suggestion. Frau von Eschenhagen was, naturally enough, incensed at the thought that her son, the heir of Burgsdorf, should act as lackey for a "theatrical hussy." She drew, for his benefit, a picture of this child of the devil, and explained how it would be an impossibility for her to follow such a shameless life without being thoroughly bad. Willibald, of course, was horror stricken at what he heard, and agreed fully with his mother that his future wife must be protected from so contaminating an influence.

He received orders never to let the young girls be alone, and to watch carefully how this Marietta behaved. At the very first intimation of a disgraceful word or action, Regine would go to her brother-in-law and demand that he should no longer permit his daughter to a.s.sociate with such an one; then she would call her son as witness, and the incubus would be expelled at once and forever from their presence. Willibald had been on guard when Marietta paid her first visit to Furstenstein, had accompanied Toni to Waldhofen when she went to the old doctor's to see her friend, and he was now at his post again, to-day, in Antonie's boudoir.