"Only one year beside thee, As witness of thy bliss, I asked."

The Count gazed before him in silence.

"He takes it for earnest," thought Carla. "I must rouse him up again a little."

"Why should we not be friends?" she said, reaching out her right hand to him, whilst the left played:

"Return to me! and let me teach How sweet the bliss of purest truth."

"Certainly, certainly!" cried the Count, imprinting a long, burning kiss on the offered hand; "why should we not be friends?"

"Friendship between pure souls is so sweet, is it not so? But the world is not pure. It loves to blacken all bright things. It requires a security. Give it the best possible under the circ.u.mstances. Marry!"

"And that is your advice to me?"

"Mine more especially. I shall gain immensely by it; I shall not quite lose you. More, I cannot--more, I do not expect."

And Carla played, with both hands:

"Let me convert thee to the faith, One bliss there is, without remorse."

"Good G.o.d, Carla--my dear Fraulein von Wallbach! do you know that something similar--almost in the same words----"

"You have heard from Signor Giraldi," said Carla, as the Count paused, embarra.s.sed. "You may say it out, I do not mind. He is the cleverest of men, and one can keep nothing secret from him, even if one wished to do so, and--I do not so wish; you also--need not wish it. He is very fond of you. He wishes you well; believe me and trust in him."

"I believe it," said the Count, "and I should trust him implicitly, if the engagement which is in question did not also include just a little touch of business. You are aware that I have to-day bought the Warnow estates, I should hardly have taken such a tremendous risk upon myself, indeed could not have done so, if it had not appeared that at least half the money in the form of dowry----"

"_Fi donc!_" said Carla.

"For heaven's sake, do not misunderstand me!" cried the Count. "It is evident that this suggestion could only come from Signor Giraldi, and from no one else. The thing is simply that Signor Giraldi, as the Baroness's agent----"

"Spare me anything of that sort, my dear Count," cried Carla. "Once for all, I understand nothing about it. I only know that my sister-in-law is a delightful creature, and that you are a terribly _blase_ man, whom every well-behaved girl must really be afraid of. And now go into the drawing-room, I hear Baroness Kniebreche, and she would never forgive you if you have not kissed her hand within the first five minutes."

"Give me courage to go to execution," whispered the Count.

"How?"

The Count did not answer, but took her hand off the keys, covered it with pa.s.sionate kisses, and hurried in a state of emotion which was half affected and half real, into the drawing-room.

"He is a good creature after all," murmured Carla, turning, and looking after him with her gla.s.s in her eye.

"That he is," said a voice close to her.

"Mon Dieu! Signor Giraldi!"

"Always at your service."

"Always at an opportune moment. You have not yet been into the drawing-room? Of course not. Come! let us have a few minutes' chat. A _tete-a-tete_ with you is a much envied privilege, which even Baroness Kniebreche herself would respect."

"And then this respectable _tete-a-tete_ is not quite so dangerous as the preceding one," said Giraldi, sitting down by Carla on a little sofa, which stood at the end of the room beneath a candelabra on the wall. "Did you speak to him?"

"Just now!"

"And what did he answer?"

"He understands everything--except----"

"Not everything then?"

"Do not smile ironically; he is not quite a nonent.i.ty. He is clever enough, for example, to ask what the special interest is which you can have in his engagement with Elsa."

"Do not be angry if I still smile a little," said Giraldi. "What, the Count inquired as to the interest I have in the matter--he, on whose side the whole profit lies! But there! I confess the sale would have been delayed for a long time, as the General out of sheer obstinacy would not consent at all, and your brother, from some reasons of propriety, would not sell direct to the provisional board, and insisted upon a go-between; I further admit that the Count is not only in every other respect more convenient and more suitable than any one else, but he is also more lucrative to us, because as a neighbour he can really pay more than any one else. But that is an advantage on our side, which we fully compensate to him by granting him other advantages, with the details of which I will not trouble you. Believe me, my dear Fraulein von Wallbach, that the Count knows all this as well as I do, and he only affects ignorance and consequently hesitation for reasons which I will set before you. Firstly: It is always well not to see the hand which throws fortune into your lap; you can then, if convenient, be as ungrateful as you please. Secondly: He loves you, and--who can blame him?--he does not consider the matter quite hopeless, so long as you remain unmarried. Thirdly: It is not absolutely certain that Fraulein von Werben will accept him, and he has in fact better reasons for this uncertainty than his philosophy and vanity combined will allow him to imagine."

"You are again referring to the fancy that Elsa is supposed to have for the handsome merchant-captain," said Carla. "Much as I admire your acuteness, my dear Giraldi, here you pa.s.s the limits of my belief."

"But supposing I have unquestionable evidence? supposing I have it in black and white, from the hand of Elsa's most intimate friend, that little Fraulein von Strummin, who went off in such headlong haste, to startle us, from the security of her island, with the news of her engagement to the sculptor, Justus Anders. Pray do not laugh. What I am telling you is absolutely true. Herr Justus Anders, again, is the Captain's most intimate friend; the two pairs of friends it appears have no secrets of any sort between them; Fraulein von Strummin also has none from her betrothed, and she writes in her letter, which arrived this morning, word for word--"

Giraldi had taken an elegant pocket-book from his coat pocket, and out of it a paper, which he unfolded.

"If any one comes in, it is supposed to be a letter from the sculptor, Enrico Braga, from Milan. She writes the following, word for word--I am not responsible for the peculiar style:

"'One thing more, dearest man, over which Lesto would howl himself to death with joy if he could understand it, and you also will rejoice like a child, as you always are. My Elsa loves your Reinhold with all her heart and soul, and that is saying something for any one who knows as I do that she is all soul, and has the most divine heart in the world. I have no permission, still less any commission, to tell you this. But we are never again to play at hide-and-seek with one another, you know, and must also inspire our poor friends with courage, and the best way to do that is to be always saying to them, "He," or in your case, "She loves you!" I have proved it at any rate with Elsa. Ah! my dearest heart, we ought indeed to feel ashamed of being so happy, when we think how unhappy our friends are, and only on account of these horrible "circ.u.mstances." If I only knew who had devised these "circ.u.mstances" I should just like to have a few words with him, you know.'"

"This is wonderfully interesting," said Carla; "and it will interest the Count extremely."

"Without doubt," said Giraldi, returning the letter to his pocket-book.

"By the way, what a wonderful woman you are, never once to have asked where I got this. In the meantime, I propose that we do not communicate this until you are certain of one thing."

"And that is!"

Giraldi bent towards Carla and looked straight into her eyes.

"That you do not finally prefer to bestow your hand upon Count Axel Golm, instead of on Ottomar von Werben."

"You are really too bad. Signor Giraldi, do you know?" said Carla, flicking him on the hand with her pocket-handkerchief.

"If you say so! But look here, my dear young lady! any communication with regard to Elsa's maritime fancy would in the end determine the Count to give up his suit; and until now it has appeared to us most convenient for all parties to marry him to Elsa. If you want him for yourself, and it seems so, well, that may also be managed; but in your place I would not be too hasty. We can keep the game going as long as we like. Why not drain the sweetness of courtship to the last drop? The more so that Ottomar--great minds are never shocked at truth--scarcely appears to appreciate, at its true worth, the happiness which awaits him in the arms of the cleverest and most agreeable of women."

"Which means, if I am not mistaken," said Carla, "that Ottomar must do as you wish; you have got the whip-hand of him. Well I know, dear friend, how powerful your hand is; but I confess that in this case I do not understand where the power lies. That Ottomar has had mistresses--very likely has them still--well! I have read Schopenhauer, who says nothing about monogamy, because he could nowhere discover it, and I should not like to be the first woman to find her beloved the less interesting because he is pleasing to other women. His debts? Good gracious! name any one to me who has none! and my brother says they are really not so bad. My brother urges our hastening on our wedding, and so does my sister-in-law now. The General is, as you know, most inconveniently obstinate in carrying out his plans; and society will be greatly injured if we are not on our wedding tour by the beginning of March; on the 15th Ottomar must enter upon his office at St.

Petersburg."

"Let us make our arrangements accordingly then, if we are otherwise agreed," answered Giraldi. "By the middle of February you will discover that your finely organised nature will no longer stand the strain of the season, and that, before you enter upon the new period of your life, you absolutely require quiet and repose, which you cannot procure in town, and can only find in the retirement of the country. And then it falls in admirably, that at that very time the Baroness, my dear friend, impelled by the necessity of rest, seeks a shelter in quiet Warnow. I have for this purpose reserved the castle and park from the Count, who this morning became the possessor of the property. He will be delighted that Fraulein von Wallbach should share the retirement of her betrothed's aunt. Not alone! The Baroness, at her own urgent request--mark that--will be accompanied by Fraulein Elsa. The Count, whose business at that time--and particularly the harbour works at Warnow--makes his residence in the country a duty, will do everything to cheer and enliven the ladies' solitude. Your brother--I myself--will come and go. What a spectacle, to watch the spring awaking in the country, on the sh.o.r.es of the ocean, perhaps to see the further blossoming of dear Elsa's quiet fancy for the man of her choice, who has gone to his new post--he has lately been made Superintendent of Pilots--I think they call it so--at Wissow, just the same distance from Warnow as the Count is at his house. How do you like my little plan?"