"Of course," said the Count.

Giraldi dropped, with a friendly pressure, the hand which he had till then held in his, and leaned back in his chair.

"Then we are agreed," he said. "I on my side consider myself fortunate in having delivered a n.o.bleman, whose intelligence and energy had won my entire sympathy even before I had the happiness of making his personal acquaintance, from the unclean hands of these roturiers, and in having placed him in a position which, as it appears to me, confers on him that leading position in this affair which in every way is his right. I at least see the road quite clear before him. To raise the second half of the purchase-money--let us for the present fix the 1st of March as the term--I say to raise the second half of the purchase-money cannot be the least difficult, as by that time you will have long ago sold the property to your a.s.sociates for double the money; you must not on any account agree for less than two millions.

And now, Count, if it is agreeable to you, allow me to conduct you to the Baroness, who is longing to make your acquaintance, as I am sure you will be happy to become acquainted with a lady whom no one can know without loving and honouring her."

Giraldi had risen; the Count stood embarra.s.sed and undecided.

"You will easily believe that I should prize the happiness proposed to me at its fullest value; but--your servant--there are a lot of people--nearly all the family--in the salon. I fear I should be looked upon as a stranger and an intruder at such a moment."

"But if," answered Giraldi, "it should just be in the presence of her family that the Baroness especially needs the friendship of men of position and weight? If she lays the greatest stress on showing that wherever she appears the friendship of those men is secured to her."

"Let us go!" exclaimed the Count.

"One word more," said Giraldi.

In the hitherto calm eyes of the Italian a deeper fire burned. The Count stood breathless; he had an undefined feeling that now he was to hear the solution of the riddle which, in spite of all, was still a mystery to him.

"And if," continued Giraldi slowly, as if weighing every syllable, "the Count should imagine that the Baroness does not expect to buy his friendship by doing him a service in a matter of business, but rather by using all her influence in his favour, in case he should have the wish, once for all, to make the reproach of being a stranger and intruder in the family impossible. I need say no more, if the Count understands, and I dare say no more if he has not understood me."

The blood mounted into the Count's face.

"If he dared to understand you!" he exclaimed, seizing the hand of the Italian and pressing it warmly--"if he dared!"

"That would be my smallest fear," answered Giraldi, with a crafty smile; "but I feel neither that nor any other. Only let prudence go hand in hand with courage, and let Count Golm kindly trust in this delicate business to the experience and knowledge of the world of an older man."

"I will not take a step without you--not a step!"

They had already reached the door when Francois entered with a card, which Giraldi, after glancing at it, handed to the Count.

"You see. Count Golm! II n'y a que le premier pas qui coute! The cost is not counted on that side! Ask Herr von Werben to come in."

Francois opened the door for Ottomar.

"I come at the general wish of the ladies," said Ottomar.

For the first time he saw the Count, The sarcastic smile left his delicate lips; his bright eyes took a gloomy shade.

"I beg pardon," said he; "I thought I should find you alone, or I would have chosen a better time----"

"To me any time is right at which I make the acquaintance of the nephew of my highly revered friend," answered Giraldi. "Besides, the Count and I were on the point of going to join the ladies in the drawing-room; now, indeed, I must ask the Count's permission to enjoy the honour of Herr von Werben's society here for a few minutes more."

"_Au revoir_, then!" said the Count, leaving the room, and considering as he crossed the anteroom, accompanied by Francois, whether he ought to be affronted or amused at Ottomar's distant manner. He came to the conclusion that he had more cause for the latter. Ottomar, indeed, had now reached the important goal; but it was extremely probable that he never would have reached it at all if a certain other person had arrived in Berlin a few days earlier. Everybody said so; and that it was only jealousy which had brought Ottomar's indecision and faint-heartedness to an end. Faint-heartedness, indeed! To satisfy a woman like Carla von Wallbach, a man must have very different qualifications to any that Ottomar von Werben could boast--must, in short, be a Count Golm. Well, he had kindly released the family from the anxiety which he had caused them--Fraulein Elsa, too, who had evidently trembled for her brother. They owed him some grat.i.tude, and all of them, excepting Ottomar, would feel that--they would be eager to show him that grat.i.tude. And if when he rose that morning he had not quite made up his mind about the other matter, he had done so now.

Favoured by the lady here, whom the whole family had hastened to visit the very morning after her arrival, the remaining difficulties would vanish that opposed themselves to his entering that family as a highly desirable member--if he chose to do so! Of course, he should reserve his liberty of decision to the last moment!

The Count lingered a little at the door to follow up his agreeable train of thought to the end, and to arrange his fair wavy hair and long moustache to the best advantage, before he desired Francois, who was waiting respectfully, to open the door for him; no special announcement was needed as he was expected.

Francois obeyed with a low bow the order given him in French, and then behind the closed door, with a still lower bow, said: "Monsieur le Comte, vous parlez francais--comme une vache espagnole---je vous rends cette justice, ah!" and drawing himself up the man shook his fist: "que je deteste ce genre la!"

CHAPTER V.

It was not so much the wish of the ladies, as the request of Carla that Ottomar had acceded to when he came in search of Giraldi. Carla was burning with curiosity to become personally acquainted with the man, of whom she had heard such an "immense number of the most interesting things;" it would be dreadful to lose such a pleasure! Could not Signor Giraldi get rid of his Excellency or of the Councillor? Could not Ottomar make a diversion by going in himself, and cutting short the Catholic question, or whatever other matter of high importance they might be discussing? Ottomar was so clever! Do ask him, Elsa! He will do anything for you! Elsa could do no less than say, "Pray oblige Carla!" and even then Ottomar had sat still, muttering that he did not speak Italian, till the Baroness said with an absent smile, "That need not prevent you, my dear Ottomar; Signor Giraldi speaks most European languages, and German in particular like a native." "Oh! why can't I go myself!" cried Carla. "If you wish it, my dear aunt," said Ottomar, and went.

With very mixed feelings, however. He had only joined in paying this visit because Elsa seemed to wish it so much, and the Wallbachs had asked him so pressingly. But that he who, after his father, represented the family, should be the first to seek out the man whose name his father would never p.r.o.nounce; the man who, if he might believe his father, had brought such sorrow and shame upon the family--this was too much for his pride. And yet in this very circ.u.mstance lay a demoniac charm which Ottomar, as he crossed the anteroom, with grim satisfaction allowed to take effect upon him. Had not his father just now forcibly interfered in his life, robbed him by his imperious proceedings of the woman he loved--now more than ever, made that life miserable, and brought her to the edge of the grave, perhaps to the grave, itself?

Should he bow here again before the mere threatening shadow of paternal authority, or not rather rejoice that an opportunity was given him to set it at defiance?

And this defiance had curled his lips in an ironical smile as he met the much-abused man.

It seemed like an evil omen that instead of the Councillor whom he expected to find here, he should meet the Count, the last man he would have wished for as witness to a step which was almost a crime against the family honour, and was at least very hazardous. The words he would have spoken died on his lips, and the dark look with which he followed the retreating figure could hardly have been misinterpreted by a less shrewd observer.

"You have no love for that gentleman," said Giraldi, waving his hand after the Count.

"I have no cause to love him," answered Ottomar.

"No, indeed," said Giraldi; "for two more opposite natures could hardly be brought together. In the one, openly expressed, supreme satisfaction with n.o.ble qualities which exist only in his imagination; in the other, perpetual gnawing doubt of the admirable gifts which Nature has so freely lavished upon him; in one, the miserable narrowness of a hard heart divided between vanity and frivolity; in the other, an overflow of love, falling into despair because all its blossoms do not ripen."

Ottomar looked up, startled. Who was this man whom he now saw for the first time, and who read his inmost heart as if it had been an open book; who at the first moment of meeting not only could, but dared to say this, as quietly as if it were a matter of course, as if it were not worth while to respect the miserable fetters of social conventionalism even for a moment; as if he could wave them away with a single movement of the slender, white hand?

He looked into the black eyes as if asking for an explanation, and as he did so there crossed his mind the recollection, of a woodland pool by which he had often played as a boy, and which was said to be unfathomable.

"I have surprised you," said Giraldi. "I might perhaps make use of your astonishment to appear to you--if only for a short time--in a mysterious light, and steal into your confidence by pretending to be in possession of heaven knows what secrets of yours. But I am no charlatan; I am not even the adventurer to whom you have come half-unwillingly, half-curiously; I am only a man whose dearest hopes and warmest wishes have been so long crushed and broken that he has forgotten how to hope or wish, and that only one feeling is left to him, that of pity for all sorrows wherever he may meet them, and especially when the sorrow is so plainly expressed on a young man's face, at a moment when other faces are beaming with joy and gladness.

And now, son of the man who is my enemy because he does not know me, give me your hand and tell me that you are not offended at my freedom!"

He extended both hands with a fascinating gesture half of entreaty, half of command, and Ottomar seized them with pa.s.sionate eagerness. He had suffered so much in the last few days, and had had no one whose band he could grasp, no one to whom he could unburden his overfull heart! And now from the eloquent lips of this handsome, strong, singular man came the first words of comfort! Were miracles possible then--or, as the man himself said, did the miracle only consist in the fact that one must be unhappy oneself to understand those who suffer?

His heart overflowed; his beautiful eager eyes filled with tears, of which he was ashamed, but which he could not check. Giraldi released his hands and turned away, pa.s.sing his hand across his eyes. When after a brief pause he turned back, there was a look of humble joy upon his expressive countenance, and his voice sounded softer than before as he said: "And now, my dear young friend, you will not forget this hour, nor what I now say; I am a poor man in spite of what people say; but anything in my power shall be done for you, for a glance of the eyes so wonderfully like those for which I would go to meet death this day as cheerfully as I would go to a feast. Come!"

He put his arm familiarly within Ottomar's, and led him to the door which he opened and let his guest precede him. Ottomar did not turn; if he had he would have been appalled at the convulsively distorted face of the man who was holding the handle of the door in his left hand, while he raised the outstretched fingers of the right hand like a vulture's claws as he strikes down his victim from behind.

The Count's entrance into the drawing-room had greatly surprised the Baroness; but a moment's reflection had been enough for her quick wits to guess at the state of affairs, and that this surprise was the work of Giraldi, the result of which she was to observe and by-and-by to report upon. Such an incentive was not needed, indeed; Elsa had become so dear to her in this one hour; every look of the joyous brown eyes, which, she well knew, could look so earnest too, every word that came from the little mouth, every movement of the slender, graceful figure--all, all was balm to her aching heart, that was languishing for true affection, for beautiful, undefaced humanity. How far behind the tender grace of her favourite must the brilliant Carla stand! Carla, with whom everything, every tone, every gesture, every turn of her eyes, every movement was called into play by an insatiable thirst for admiration, which did not by any means always attain its object, and often far outstripped its aim. She had closely compared the two girls, and each time told herself that a man who had Elsa for a sister could not really love Carla, and that no good would come of the engagement for Ottomar, even if he had not pa.s.sed the threshold to it, so to speak, over the body of the forsaken beauty who was breaking her heart now in despair. To her who had been initiated into the secret by her tyrant, the remorse which devoured him spoke only too plainly in the nervous glitter of his beautiful eyes, in his sullen silence or the forced speech to which he again roused himself, and in the constant gnawing of the delicate lip between his sharp teeth. And she, who had given her hand and her word to the unhappy man, seemed to see and suspect nothing of all this! She could chatter and laugh, and flirt with the Count exactly as she had done a minute before with her betrothed, only that her frivolous game was evidently not wasted now, but eagerly and sincerely admired, and gratefully responded to to the best of the man's ability. And then her observant look returned to Elsa and met a pair of eyes which she had already learned to read so well, and in which she now thought she could perceive the same feelings that moved herself; sorrow, pity, astonishment, blame--all indeed in a lesser degree, as was natural in the young girl, who probably did not know the sad secret of her brother's engagement. And this sisterly sympathy was certainly not mixed with any selfish feelings. When the Count entered so unexpectedly, he had been welcomed by no joyful lifting of the eyes in which every thought was reflected, no brighter crimson in the cheek on which the colour always came and went so quickly; nothing but a look of astonishment which was little flattering to the new-comer, and which proved to Valerie how well her tyrant was kept informed by his spies, Everything that she had seen and heard in this last hour tallied in every particular with what he had foretold.

And now he would appear, accompanying poor Ottomar, whom in these few minutes he would have won, fascinated, enchanted as he did all who came within his reach--he would enter like a sovereign who appears last, when well-trained officials have appointed each guest his place, so that the eye of the ruler need not wander inquiringly, but may glance with a satisfied smile over the a.s.sembly which only waits for him.

He came in at last, only leaning on Ottomar's arm long enough for every one to have time to remark the confidential relations that already existed between him and the nephew of their hostess; and then hastening his step and leaving Ottomar behind him, he advanced to the party grouped round the sofa, whose conversation died away at once, as all raised their eyes curiously and wonderingly to the man they had been so eagerly expecting. And however many proofs Valerie had already received of the man's tact, she was again forced against her will to admire the consummate art with which--she could hardly herself have said how--he became almost immediately the centre round which everything else revolved, from whom came every impulse and interest, to whom every thought and feeling returned. Even Frau von Wallbach had raised herself from the comfortable att.i.tude in her arm-chair which she had taken after the first words of civility and had retained unchanged till now, and stared with half-open mouth and eyes which looked almost wide awake at the strange apparition. Elsa had evidently forgotten for the moment everything that had been troubling her before; and as she turned after a little while to her aunt and drew a long breath, there lay in her countenance the silent acknowledgment: "This is more, far more than I had expected." Carla had the same feeling, and took care by her looks and gestures to let everybody know it, even before she openly expressed it.

"In these days," cried she, "when the want of lively sensibilities and of courage to express the little that still exists is doubly felt, I have reserved to myself the child-like habit of nave admiration wherever and however I find what is admirable, and the privilege of Homer's heroes of giving unveiled expression to my admiration. And when among the insipid faces of the north--present company, gentlemen, is always excepted--I see a face for whose description even the sun-bathed portraits of a t.i.tian, a Raphael or a Velasquez do not suffice, which I can compare to nothing but that miraculous picture to which I owe my most sublime impressions, to that indescribably dignified and yet most divinely benignant Head of Christ over the high altar in the Cathedral of Monreale at Palermo--I must speak it out though Signor Giraldi does raise his hand so deprecatingly, thereby increasing his resemblance to the picture, which will be to me henceforward indeed only a portrait."

"I am delighted to offer a humble theme to so lofty an artistic imagination as undoubtedly inspires Fraulein von Wallbach," answered Giraldi.

"I think we must be going," said Frau von Wallbach, with an absent look at the ceiling.

"Good heavens! Half-past two!" cried Carla, starting up; "how time flies in such interesting company!"

The company dispersed; Giraldi, who had gone with them to the door, came back slowly, his head raised, his dark eyes gleaming with triumph, and a smile of contempt curling his lip. Suddenly, in the centre of the room, he stood still, and for a moment his face grew dark as night, but the next he was smiling again, and with a smile he asked:

"Is that the look of a victor after the battle?"