Her father appeared after the long conference paler and more exhausted than Elsa had ever seen him.

"They have done it at last, Elsa," he said. "The Warnow property, which has been two hundred years in the possession of the family, will be sold and cut up. Your aunt Valerie may justify it if she can, since she and she alone is to blame that an old and honourable family falls miserably to the ground. Had she been a good and faithful wife to my friend--but what use is it harping upon bygone things? It is folly in my own eyes, how much more so then in those of others, to whom the present is everything! And I must confess the gentlemen have acted quite in the spirit of the age, cleverly, rationally, and in your interests. If the results are as brilliant as the Councillor flatters himself, you will be at least twice as rich as before. It is very unnatural, Elsa, but I hope he triumphs too soon. The Count--whom he proposes as purchaser--can only pay the outrageous sum named--for the entire property is really scarcely worth half a million, let alone a whole million--if he is certain that so great a burden will be immediately lifted off his shoulders; that is to say, if the scandalous project is carried out, the danger and folly of which I so strongly urged with the help of the staff and Captain Schmidt. If it does, however, come to anything, if the concession is granted, it would be an affront to that small authority which I can lay claim to, but which I do claim, so that I should look upon it in the same light as if I had been pa.s.sed over in the approaching promotions. I should at once send in my resignation. The decision must be made soon. For Golm it is a question of life and death. He will either be utterly ruined or a Cr[oe]sus; and I shall be his Excellency or a poor pensioner--all quite in the spirit of the age, which is always playing a game of hazard.

Well, G.o.d's will be done! I can only win, not lose, since no one and nothing can rob me of the best and highest--my clear conscience--and the knowledge that I have always stood to the old colours, and have acted as a Werben should act."

So said the father to Elsa in a state of agitation, which, hard as he tried to control it, quivered and broke out in his words, and in the very vibrations of his deep voice. It was the first time that he had given her such a proof of his confidence, as to let her be a witness of a struggle which formerly he would have fought out in silence in his proud soul. Was it chance? Was it intentional? Was it but the outpouring of the overflowing vessel? Or did her father suspect or know her secret? Did he mean to say to her, "Such a decision may soon be awaiting you also. I trust and hope that you, too, will stand to the colours which are sacred to me, that you also will prove yourself a Werben."

This had taken place in the morning. Meta, after another sitting, had unexpectedly received an invitation to dinner from a friend of her mother's. She should not return till the evening. For the first time Elsa scarcely missed her friend. She was glad to be alone, and to be able to give way to her thoughts in silence. They were not cheerful, these thoughts. But she felt it a duty to think them out, so as to see her way clearly if possible. She thought she had succeeded, and found in it a calm satisfaction, which, as she said to herself, was truly her whole compensation for all she had renounced in secret.

And in this resigned frame of mind she received with tolerable composure the news which Meta brought on her return home, which otherwise would have filled her with sorrow, that Meta was going--must go. She had found at the lady's to whom she had gone a letter from mamma, in which mamma made such terrible lamentations over her long absence, that she could not do otherwise than go at once--that was to say, the first thing tomorrow morning. What she felt she would not and could not say. It was an extraordinary frame of mind, in any case, as whilst she seemed to be drowned in tears, she broke into a smile the next moment, which she in vain attempted to suppress, until the smiles again merged into tears; and so she went on for the rest of the evening. The next morning this state of mind had reached such a pitch that Elsa became really uneasy about the extraordinary girl, and begged her to postpone her journey until she was somewhat calmer. But Meta stood firm. She was quite determined, and Elsa would think her quite right if she knew all; and she should know all, but by letter; by word of mouth she could not tell her without dying of laughter, and she did not wish to die just yet, for reasons which she also could not tell her without dying of laughter.

And so she carried on the joke till she got into the carriage, in which August was to take her to the station. She had absolutely forbidden any one else to accompany her, "for reasons, Elsa, you know, which--there!

you will see it all in the letter, you know, which--good-bye, dear, sweet, incomparable Elsa!" And off drove Meta.

In the evening August, not without some solemnity, gave Elsa a letter which the young lady had given him at the last moment before starting, with strict injunctions to deliver it punctually twelve hours later, on the stroke of nine in the evening. It was a thick letter, in Meta's most illegible handwriting, from which Elsa with difficulty deciphered the following:

"6 o'clock p.m.

"Dearest Elsa,

"Do not believe a word of what, when I return home, I--ah! that is no use. You will not read this letter till--I write it here at Frau von Randon's, so as to lose no time--August will give it to you when I am gone. Well, it is all untrue! My mother has not written at all. For the last week I have deceived and imposed upon you abominably, as since then I have no longer been on your behalf, and it would have been quite useless if I had; for it is now clear to me that your Reinhold has discovered long since how matters stood with us, and kept out of the way, even before we ourselves had a suspicion; for you may believe me, Elsa, that when two men are such good friends, they stand by one another in such matters as well as we girls could. And before dear blind Cilli we did not think it necessary either to have any reserve, because she always smiled so merrily when we teased each other; and then she could not see, and in such cases, you know, the eyes play a great part. It began, indeed, with the eyes, for till then everything had gone on quite properly; but when he came to them he said, 'I shall now have an opportunity of finding out exactly what colour your eyes are; I have been puzzling my brains about it all this time.' I maintained they were yellow, Aunt Rikchen said green, he himself brown; and Cilli, to whom the decision was left, said she was certain they were blue, because I was so cheerful, and cheerful people always had blue eyes. So we went on joking about it; and every day he began again about my eyes, and as you cannot very well talk about eyes without looking into them, I looked into his eyes while he looked in mine, and--I don't know whether you have made the same discovery, Elsa, but when one has done so for a few days, one begins to see more and more clearly--quite down to the bottom of them--quite curious things, I can tell you, which makes one turn hot and cold, and one often does not know whether to laugh and to give the man who looks at you like that a box on the ear, or to burst into tears and fall on his neck.

"I had felt like this already once or twice, and to-day again, only rather worse than before. The a.s.sistants had gone to dinner, and Aunt Rikchen to see after her household affairs; there were only he and I, and Cilli, and Justus wished to go on working if we did not mind, that he might finish once for all. But he did not work so industriously as usual, and because I saw that, I also did not sit so still as usual; and we--that is, he and I--played all sorts of tricks with Lesto, who must lie down and pretend to be dead, and who barked furiously at me when I pretended to beat his master, and other nonsense, until we suddenly heard the sound of the door shutting which leads to the garden, and--good gracious, Elsa! how can I tell you?--Cilli had gone away without our having noticed it. We thought we must have gone rather too far then, and so became quite quiet--as still as mice--so that you might have heard a pin fall; and I was so embarra.s.sed, Elsa--so embarra.s.sed, you know--and getting every moment more so, when he suddenly knelt down right before me--my knees were trembling so, that I had sat down--and again looked so into my eyes, and I--I was forced to, Elsa--I asked quite softly what he meant. 'I mean,' said he--but also quite softly--'that you must do what I ask you.' 'I shall box your ears if you do not get up directly,' said I, still more softly. 'I shall not get up,' said he, but so close to me that I could no longer box his ears, but instead fell upon his neck, upon which Lesto, who evidently thought that his master's life was in danger, began to bark furiously; and I, just to quiet Lesto and to make Justus get up off his knees, said 'Yes' to everything he asked--that I loved him, and would be his wife, and everything else that one says in such a terrible moment.

"And now only think, Elsa, Elsa! when, in the course of five minutes, we had quieted Lesto and were going out--as I said I had sworn to be discreet and to do you credit, and that I would not remain a second longer with so dangerous a man in so lonely a place, with all those dreadful marble figures--and as we went out arm-in-arm, Cilli suddenly stepped towards us from between two of the statues, herself as white as marble, but with the most heavenly smile on her sweet face, and said we must not be angry with her, as the door had shut itself and she could not get out, and she had heard all--her hearing was so acute, and there was such an echo in the studio. Oh, Elsa, I almost sank into the floor, for I think there had not been words only. But that divine creature, as if she had seen how red I grew, took me by the hand and said I need not be ashamed; there was no need to be ashamed of a true, honourable love; and I did not yet know how happy I was, how proud I ought to be; but I should learn it gradually, and then I should be grateful for my proud happiness, and love Justus very, very much, as an artist needed far, far more love than other men. And then she took Justus's hand, and said, 'And you, Justus, you will love her like the sunshine, without which you cannot live.' And as she said so, a ray of sunshine fell through the studio window right upon the dear thing, and she looked transfigured--so marvellously beautiful, with the poor blind eyes turned upwards, that at last I could not help crying, and she had great difficulty in quieting me. And then she said: 'You must not remain here in this state of agitation; you must at once return home and tell your mother, and no one before her, for my knowing it is a mere chance for which you are not to blame.' And I promised her all she wished, and I feel now how right the dear angel was, as I am quite mad with delight, and should certainly have done some folly for very joy; and that I must not do, since I have sworn to be sensible and to do you credit. I shall start to-morrow morning, and shall be home to-morrow evening at eight o'clock, by half-past shall have told mamma all, and at nine August will give you this letter, as after mamma you are, of course, the next.

I told Cilli so at once, and she quite agreed to it; and her last words were, 'Pray to G.o.d that your friend may be as happy as you are now.'

And I will do so, Elsa, you may depend upon it; and in all other respects also depend upon your ever loving, wise

"Meta.

"P.S.--Of course, 'he' is an exception to the 'all.' I am very sorry, but it cannot be helped, you know."

"The dear, foolish child!" said Elsa, as she finished the letter, with a deep sigh; "I congratulate her with all my whole heart."

And as she sat there and thought over how wonderfully it had all come about, and how happy the two must be in their love, her eyes became more fixed, her breathing ever harder, and then she covered her eyes with her hands, bent her head upon Meta's letter, and cried bitterly.

CHAPTER X.

Three days later--the autumn sun was going down, and it was already getting dusk in the large room--Giraldi sat at his writing-table near the window, reading the letters which had arrived for him. A considerable number had acc.u.mulated in the course of the day, which he had spent since early morning in important business in the town, for the sale of the property to the Count had taken place to-day; there were political letters from Paris and London, ecclesiastical matters from Brussels and Cologne, a detailed report from a trusty friend at Strasburg upon the state of affairs in Alsace-Lorraine, business letters of the most varied kind--English, French, Italian, German.

Giraldi read one as easily as the other; he even made his marginal notes always in the same language as his correspondent wrote in. "It grows and grows," murmured he: "we are not far now from the crisis; and how delightful it is to hear from the mouths of others as extraordinary news, things that could not have happened without us. Unfortunately they are beginning to find out here the importance of the unt.i.tled and undecorated Signor, the mere private secretary to a lady of rank, and the best part of my working powers will be lost. So long as one is a n.o.body one can hear everything and hear it correctly; but the moment people begin to point at one, one learns very little, and that little wrong. That is the curse of royalty."

He took up a letter, which he had before thrown on one side, taking it from its shape to be one of the begging letters which he constantly received from poor fellow-countrymen, or from native _chevaliers d'industrie_. "It is a priest's hand," he said. "Ah! from my correspondent at Tivoli. Well! the worthy man has kept me a long time waiting for an answer." He hastily opened the letter, ran through the contents, and then leaned back in his chair with a look of annoyance.

"H'm!" he muttered, "the old fox will not fall into the trap. He has understood me, that is clear. He admits that there are many wonderful dispensations of Providence, he even hints that the boy's birth is shrouded in mystery, which means, in Italian, that he is not the son of his parents, only that circ.u.mstances are too much against my paternity.

Idiot! He must himself know that best; or is he not so stupid? Have I not offered him enough? I ought to have left the price to himself. I would pay anything. I----"

He had got up, and slowly paced up and down through the darkening room.

"That is to say, I do not care to throw away my money, and the first experiment has miserably failed. Her reluctance to see the boy was decided enough, and she will not even discover a trace of likeness; says he is the type of the Roman peasants, such as are found at Albano, and Tivoli, and everywhere. Not even his beauty will she allow. There is no soul in the countenance, only the commonplace, brilliant stamp of a strong, sensual nature. And to that she holds with an obstinacy which she has never shown in anything else. It seems that the mother's instinct cannot be deceived. Bah! what deception cannot be carried out, if a man only sets about it in the right way! I have been too hasty, that is what has startled her. I must allow that I have been, too sanguine, must play at resignation, and then perhaps like a woman, out of sheer caprice, she will come round herself--

"What is it, Francois?"

"The lady in black, monsieur."

"Once for all, she is to be shown in to me by the other pa.s.sage."

"They are working in the other pa.s.sage to-day, monsieur."

"Never mind. You will take her back by the other pa.s.sage."

"Very well, monsieur; can she come in?"

"One moment. Madame dines at home. I dine out, at Herr von Wallbach's--the carriage for me at half-past five. Let madame know, and that at a quarter-past five I will come and take leave of her. Has Signor Antonio been here in the course of the day?"

"No, monsieur."

"No one else is to be admitted. Let the lady come in."

Giraldi did not get up as the lady entered, and now only gave her a sign to take a place near him at the writing-table.

"I was expecting you. How are we getting on?"

"No better than on the first day."

"That is bad."

"It is very wearisome," said Bertalda, throwing back her veil, "very wearisome. I have come to tell you so; I am sick of the whole thing."

She lay back in her chair, with a look of ill-humour, knocking the tips of her boots against each other.

"Bah!" said Giraldi, "how much do you want?" and he stretched out his hand to a casket which stood before him on the table.

"I want nothing," said Bertalda. "I told you at once, the first time you sought me out, that I only did it out of pity for poor Werben, and because I have a weakness for him, and because I wish to annoy that fine Philip, who behaved so abominably to Victorine, and I wish from my heart that his sister should be no better."

"I have told you already that it was not from Herr Schmidt that I learnt that Herr von Werben is visiting you again."

"Then you heard it from Count Golm, and I cannot abide him; he will have to wait a long time before I give him a good word, and now----"

"My dear child, permit me to observe that you are not very judicious,"

said Giraldi, smiling. "You have half a dozen personal reasons for doing what you are doing; I pay you besides, and beg you moreover to consider me at your disposal in that matter, and you want to give the whole affair up because----"

"It bores me! I can bear anything except being bored."

"What is it that bores you? Explain that to me."