After the first excitement of meeting was over, Countess Wjera's attention was naturally concentrated upon her son's betrothed.

"I can but congratulate you from my heart, Ossi," she said earnestly, looking full into the young girl's eyes--eyes that shone like two blue violets under the clearest skies--violets that had suffered nothing from late frosts or too ardent sunshine. "You are a favourite of fortune, my child."

Gabrielle blushed, and buried her face in the bunch of white roses, which Oswald had brought her; and Oswald was touched, and smiled his thanks to his mother, as he whispered a tender word to his betrothed.

"Do you know who came in the same train with us?" Truyn suddenly asked, interrupting the happy moment.

"Capriani, father and son, I saw them," said Oswald, "look at him, mamma, there is my rival, the enterprising young spark, who sued for Gabrielle's hand. A mad idea, was it not? Gabrielle, and a son of Capriani!--we shouted with laughter, when the Melkweyser announced the proposal."

The flurry of the arrival had subsided, and the Countess leisurely inspected through her eyegla.s.s the sallow young man who was talking with Georges Lodrin. Gabrielle said something about his dark blue travelling-suit, shot with gold; Zinka made inquiries, all in a breath, of her husband, and of the two lady's-maids, whether this or that article of luggage had not been left in Paris or in the railway coupe.

When at last all her anxieties on this point had been relieved, and they had pa.s.sed through the station to the carriages, they observed a magnificent four-in-hand, the harness decorated with a coronet.

"By Jove!" Truyn exclaimed with delight, "superb, Ossi, superb! I have rarely seen four such beauties together!"

"Nor have I," said Oswald, examining the horses critically, "unfortunately they are not mine--they belong to Capriani."

"Impossible!" Truyn said disdainfully, "speculator that he is, he may bore through the isthmus of Panama, for all I care, but he cannot get together such a four-in-hand as that."

"Fritz Malzin selected and arranged it for him," Oswald explained.

"Poor Fritz!"

"I cannot understand him," Truyn said in an undertone, and hastily changing the subject, he asked: "Have you come to terms with Capriani, about the Kanitz affair, Ossi? Could not the sale be revoked?"

"The matter would have been very difficult to adjust, I am told--of course I understand nothing of such things,--" replied Oswald, "but Capriani--what will you say to this, uncle?--yielded the point, 'out of special regard' for me, as his lawyer informed Dr. Schindler. Between ourselves, it was--what word shall I use?--audacious, for I have never spoken to him in my life, and yet I had to accept his uncalled-for courtesy, for Schmitt's sake."

"Remarkable, very!" said Truyn, "We usually have to pay dear for the courtesies of a Capriani and his kind!"

"Have you everything, Ella?" asked Zinka, "shall we start?"

"I should like to have my hand-bag, Hortense has left it with the large luggage."

Meanwhile, with an unpleasant smile and hat in hand, a sallow-faced, grey-haired, elderly man, with the look of a bird of prey, approached the Countess Wjera, and held out his right hand. "I am immensely gratified, your Excellency, after so long a time ....!"

The Countess, her eyes half closed, measured him haughtily. "With whom have I the pleasure ...?"

"Conte Capriani."

The Countess silently shrugged her shoulders, and turning half away, called in an irritated tone, "Are we ready to go at last, Ossi?...."

A whirling cloud of dust was soon the only trace left of the bustle of the arrival.

The short drive was spent by Truyn in reminiscences, by the betrothed pair in sentiment.

At the tea, which was awaiting the travellers, and of which the Lodrin's stayed to partake, there was much laughter over the _chic_ of the Caprianis, over their wealth, and--their obtrusiveness. Oswald suddenly grew thoughtful.

"Did you ever before meet these people, mamma?" he asked.

"I never knew any Conte Capriani in my life,--who are these Caprianis?"

asked the Countess.

"n.o.body knows," said Oswald. "Some say he is a Greek, some that he comes from Ma.r.s.eilles, and others that he is a Turk."

"They are all wrong," Georges said drily, "he comes originally from Bohemia; he was formerly a physician, and his name was Stein."

BOOK SECOND.

CHAPTER I.

Rautschin, still Rautschin!--the tiny town lying at the feet of the huge castle on the tower of which the clock has stopped for twenty years--but no longer in pouring rain with thunder and lightning, but Rautschin beneath skies of sapphire blue, upon a hot July afternoon.

The sun was still high in the heavens. The crooked little row of houses on one side of the Market Square, cast short, black shadows, the national red kerchiefs, with broad borders of gay flowers hanging at the door of the princ.i.p.al shop, fluttered gently in the summer breeze.

A melancholy hubbub of discords, struggling in vain for a solution, was heard through the open window of one of the newest and ugliest houses.

Eugene Alexander Cibulka, and the wife of the district commissioner, were playing Wagner's 'Walkure,' arranged for four hands, and each had again 'lost the place.' They regularly lose the place every time a leaf is turned, and so the one who gets first to the bottom of the page, very kindly waits for the other.

Rautschin Castle stands proudly superior to every structure about it, ensconced behind all kinds of farm-buildings and additions, at the extreme end of the Market Square, to which it turns its shoulder, as it were. Except for its imposing dimensions, it is in no wise remarkable.

Standing at the entrance of a very extensive park, it dates from the time of Maria Theresa, when the present clumsy edifice, its prim facade defaced by gra.s.s-green shutters, was built upon the remains of a feudal fortress. The court-yard is not perfectly square, and the arches of the arcade rest upon granite pillars. Its interior is quite in accordance with its exterior; it is anything but splendid, and has an air of empty, dignified distinction.

Before the western side of the Castle, Count Truyn with his young wife was sitting beneath the shade of a red and gray striped marquee; behind them in a garden-room, the gla.s.s doors of which were wide open, Oswald, standing on a step-ladder, was busy hanging on the wall a piece of gold-embroidered Oriental stuff, and Gabrielle was handing him the nails.

"Well Zini, are you beginning to like our home?" said Truyn, propping his elbows upon the white garden table, between himself and his wife.

He looked so contented, so proud of his possessions, so triumphant, that Zinka could not refrain from teasing him a little.

"Taken all in all, yes," she said indifferently, "but then taken all in all, I should like Siberia, with you and Ella."

"Zinka! I must confess,"--Truyn's face a.s.sumed a disturbed and almost offended expression, "I must say that I cannot understand how any one can compare Rautschin to a place of exile!"

"I did not mean to do so, rest a.s.sured," Zinka said, "I think your Rautschin very delightful, I should only like to alter a few details."

"I cannot abide improvements," growled Truyn, "it is only the Caprianis and Company, who must always be beautifying everything old--that is destroying it. I think an old place should be left as it is, with all its characteristic defects--to try to improve them, seems to me like trying to correct the drawing of a Giotto or a Cimabue."

"I can understand a respect for the old mis-drawings," Zinka rejoined quietly, "but does one owe the same respect to modern retouching, to the vandalism that has made clumsy additions to an old picture?"

"Hm!" Truyn gazed thoughtfully around him--"no, in fact. It is remarkable that you are always right, you little witch. Now be frank Zini; what exactly would you like to have different? So far as my veneration and my finances permit, you shall have your will."

Zinka pointed to the lawn that lay before them, terribly disfigured by bright red and yellow arabesques. "I think that confectioner's ornamentation there almost as ugly as the carpet-gardening at the Villa Albani," she said, "don't you?"

Truyn ran his hands through his hair, "Well, yes,"--he meekly admitted after a pause, "but I cannot possibly alter that. Old Kraus, to surprise me, has taken infinite pains to portray our crest on the lawn--I had to praise him for his brilliant idea, however hideous I thought the thing, don't you see, Zini?"

"That alters the case entirely," Zinka admitted. "I would not hurt faithful old Kraus for the world. But"--she pointed to the basin of a fountain, the shape of which was particularly ugly--"old Kraus could not have designed that basin--that might be cleared away!"