Hammer and Anvil: A Novel

by Friedrich Spielhagen

CHAPTER XIV.

I had spent the rest of the forenoon in my room, in order to finish a calculation necessary to the proper adjustment of the machine at the quarry. But I had not got beyond the statement of the problem. The new, almost certain prospect of being able to carry out my great wish to enlarge our works, almost made me dizzy. In fancy I saw the space of ground where my lodging was, covered with buildings; I saw the flames springing from the great furnaces and smoke pouring from the tall chimneys; I heard the clang of hammer on anvil, and saw the crowd of dingy workmen thronging the wide yards in the evening, and scattering in the streets of a new quarter where in cleanly houses cheerful homes awaited them, where they could rest from the toils of the day. And a change had passed over the desolate house in which I lived; fresh green sward surrounded it, a Triton spouted a jet of water high into the air from the old basin of sandstone into which it fell plashing back, where a host of goldfish played merrily, or darted back from the margin at the approach of a pair who came up hand in hand and bent over the water to see their own faces reflected. But the reflection quivered and broke, so that only now and then could be seen two bright blue eyes and two full red lips, nor was it clear whether the eyes flashed with anger or with love, or whether the lips were pouted to a scornful word or to a kiss.

"Dinner will soon be served, Herr Engineer," said William Kluckhuhn, entering. "Can I assist the Herr Engineer to dress?"

William regularly came with this polite offer of his services, although I just as regularly declined them. But to-day he would not take any dismissal, and helped me on with my best coat so actively, and brushed and touched me up with such zealous pertinacity, that I had to ask him if he had any request to make of me.

"Oh, no," he answered; "but you were so kind as to get me back into favor with the master, who was in the wrong altogether, for even if I drank champagne----"

"Very well, William," I said.

"So I only wanted to tell you," he went on in a confidential tone, "that they have had a terrible quarrel, and I very plainly heard----"

"But I do not wish to hear it, William."

"But you need not mind my telling you, for if I listened at the door a little bit, that was not your doing, and it was not my doing that the door was ajar, and I plainly heard our lady say that she would never forgive it you----"

"Well," I muttered.

"And when she said it, she looked----"

"So you could see too?"

"O, the door was pretty wide open," William answered, shrugging his shoulders, "and I made a rattling with the plates on purpose, but the Fräulein was in such a rage----"

And William here made a face, apparently intended to represent the one he had seen through the crack of the door, but so absurdly incredible that I burst out laughing.

"Very good," he said; "I wanted to give you the hint; for when she is angry----but you can laugh."

And William sighed deeply and looked at me in a supplicating manner. "Well?" I said.

"And I wanted to beg you," he went on, "that if--ahem! you know what I mean--you would be so good as to help me and my Louise too, for we have been waiting now six years, and it is easy for you, Herr Engineer. Is it not, now, Herr Engineer?"

"William, I firmly believe you have taken leave of your senses," I answered, and strode past him out of the room with a look intended to express majestic indignation.

But William's ears had served him faithfully, as I presently learned at table. The company was small; no one besides the inmates, except Arthur, who had come over in the justizrath's carriage from Rossow, and greeted me as usual with excessive friendliness. The two Eleonoras, owing to the warmth of the day, appeared in virgin white, and as a group, of course. Hermine kept us waiting awhile. The commerzienrath drew me aside and whispered to me that the prince had sent him word that he must be quite satisfied about the chalk-quarry before the negotiation went any further, and that he would send over his carriage this afternoon to bring me to Rossow.

I had no time to answer this communication, which for more than one reason was unacceptable to me, for at this moment Hermine entered and I saw plainly that she had been weeping, although she tried hard to appear as gay and careless as possible. The day was so charming--so delicious! and to-morrow it would be finer still, and the party to the Schlachtensee would be too delightful! The company was to be the very nicest that could be; all young people, not an old one among them. After dinner they would go over to Trantow to pick up Hans, who could not be dispensed with, then to Sulitz, where Herr von Zarrentin and his charming wife would join them; then arrive between five and six at the coast-village Sassitz; a stroll through the dunes and the beech forest as far as the Schlachtensee; supper, with pine-apple-punch, and moonrise there; return through the wood to the cross-roads at the Rossow pines, where their carriage and horses would be ready for them; return of the whole company without exception to Zehrendorf; and wind up all with tea and punch, and, if possible, a dance for such as were very nice.

"Bravo! bravo! That is a plan!" cried Arthur, enthusiastically clapping his hands.

"I knew it would have your approval, dear Arthur," said the fair designer, stretching her hand to him over the table, with her sweetest smile; "you understand these things, and I count upon you especially."

"I did not count upon you," she added, turning suddenly to me.

"I neither said, nor supposed anything of the kind, Fräulein Hermine," I replied.

"That is the very reason why one cannot count upon you in such things. You don't think about them. Of course! How can any one whose mind is occupied with matters of so much more importance?"

Hermine was never particularly amiable in her behavior to me, but her conduct to-day was so pointedly unkind, and her vehemence too void of any visible cause, not to strike the most indifferent spectator, not to mention the steuerrath and the Born, who were very far from indifferent, and now cast meaning looks at Arthur, as if urging him to strike while the iron was hot. Arthur was evidently quite disposed to follow their counsel, but did not precisely know how to go about it; so he contented himself with giving Hermine a languishing look, and curling his little black beard. The others seemed to gather from Hermine's last words, and still more from the excited tone in which she had spoken, that there was something unusual in the air. Fräulein Duff, who had been all the time looking remarkably pale and agitated, raised her eyes, as if in despair, to the ceiling, while the justizrath riveted his gaze on a dish of salad, and drummed lightly on the table; Emilie looked at her friend Elise, and Elise at Emilie, Emilie's look inquiring "Does an innocent child like me need to understand these things?" and Elise's replying "Sport peacefully, sweet cherub! Leave this to us experienced ones!" Even William Kluckhuhn, who stood waiter in hand at the sideboard, pulled a long face, as if the turn things had taken was not altogether to his satisfaction, and the commerzienrath alone was so busy with the other waiter, who was uncorking under his eyes a bottle of the famous hock, that he had not the least idea as to the cause of the sudden silence that had fallen upon the company. He looked up in the most unconscious manner in the world, and asked innocently--"I beg your pardon, but what were you speaking about?"

The peculiar expression which I had noticed in so many different shades on the faces of the guests, grew several tints deeper. The silence was more profound; the second waiter John, who was in the act of uncorking the '22 hock, stopped with the cork half-drawn, and the plates which William was handling rattled nervously, as the steuerrath pouring out with unsteady hand a glass of wine, replied:

"Our dear Hermine was remarking that in the innocent amusements which youth loves, one could not count upon our excellent George--you will excuse me, George, for calling you by the old familiar name--because our young friend has so many other, and, we will admit, more important things on his mind."

The commerzienrath poured out with his own hands the precious wine into the large hock-glasses--only a thumb's breadth deep, as otherwise one lost the perfect bouquet--and probably took advantage of this pause to collect himself, so that he was able to reply in a peculiar drawling tone:

"More important things? Is not that a wine! More important things--the very flower of the Rhine!--on his mind? I should think so: we made a bargain this morning; he is to sell Ziehrendorf for me and I am to buy for him that piece of ground adjoining the works in Berlin. I should think it likely that such a thing as that would be on any one's mind."

I was astonished beyond measure to hear the commerzienrath, whom I knew to be a very cautious man, mention an affair which we had only agreed upon a few hours before, and which I considered a strict business secret, thus openly before all his guests, and especially in the presence of the justizrath, to whom my intervention in the matter was anything but flattering--I was so amazed, I say, at this unbusinesslike, incomprehensible proceeding of the usually so shrewd old man, that I felt a flush of confusion rising hot in my face.

Again silence fell upon the room; the peculiar expression in the countenances of the guests deepened another tone, and now it was Hermine's voice that broke the silence:

"Have I not told you, Emilie, that Herr Hartwig is a frightful aristocrat? He cannot bear to see so old an estate in any other than noble hands. That sort of thing is not for us plebeians. What does it matter that we have to leave a place that we have grown fond of in these seven years? We must take what we can get and be thankful that we are anywhere at all."

There was a quiver in the tone of her voice, and her eyelids reddened as if she restrained her tears with difficulty; the silence grew more oppressive, and there was no need for the commerzienrath's raising his voice so high as he said:

"So it is: God's service goes before lord's service, and our George has the notion that he serves God with every additional farthing that he can make those poor devils of workmen earn; and if he has but few good words for lord's service, woman's service is his downright abomination."

"That is not your device, Arthur!" said the steuerrath, in an encouraging tone.

"Noblesse oblige," said the Born, with emphasis.

"Mon cœur aux dames!" said Arthur, laying his delicate hand on his heart and bowing to his cousin.

The justizrath and his ladies said nothing, contenting themselves with exchanging significant looks to the effect that this was a family affair, and they have better avoid meddling in it.

Again ensued an embarrassing pause, which was broken, just as the situation seemed to have reached a climax, by William Kluckhuhn using his pocket-handkerchief with an energy altogether unbecoming in a decorous serving-man, even in moments of the most lively concern. Fräulein Duff, who had held her thin hands spasmodically clasped over her breast during the last words of the Commerzienrath with the pale resignation of one whose only remaining hope is in a better hereafter, broke out into a hysterical weeping, and Hermine suddenly rising and pressing her handkerchief to her cheeks and forehead, begged that the company would excuse her if her ill-humor had annoyed them, but that her headache was so violent that she must retire to her room.

I do not believe that any one of those present believed in this headache, but this of course did not hinder the two Eleonoras from springing from their chairs, and approaching the fair sufferer on either side, in the intent to compose a touching group. But Hermine had already seized the arm of her sobbing governess, and left the room with a painful smile upon her lips, which seemed intended for all the company except myself.

Except myself, over whom her look had passed as if my chair were empty, and the rest of the company seemed to entertain the same opinion. No one had a word or look for me, and I have never forgotten it of William Kluckhuhn that at this fateful moment he had the hardihood to step behind my chair, and in a suppressed tone to ask:

"Will the Herr Engineer take another glass of hock?"

I took the glass, and sipped it slowly with the air of a connoisseur, but I cannot say that I was able to do justice to the noble vintage. With all the trouble I took to appear quite at my ease, I was greatly pained and disconcerted. It is an extremely disagreeable thing to be singled out in this way by a young lady before an entire company.

Happily my strength was not tasked too hardly. The company rose from table and hastily separated; I went out into the grounds to think it all over in the soothing companionship of a cigar.

One thing was at once perfectly intelligible: the behavior of the company at this incident. They had let me drop at the instant they thought they saw that my game was lost. I knew well that Arthur's parents had never given up the hope that he would one day marry his cousin, and that their fulsome flatteries and Arthur's deceitful show of friendship were only meant to cloak their real aim, and perhaps to obtain some influence over me, as they probably feared that open enmity would only make their chance worse.

As for the justizrath and the two Eleonoras, they merely swam with the stream. They and the others--the conduct of all was explicable enough; but the commerzienrath? Did it not look as if he had intentionally provoked this scene at table, or at least offered the opportunity? He was usually adroit enough in giving another turn to the conversation when it did not please him. And if he really needed my assistance in effecting the sale, why did he mention the matter to Hermine now when all was still unsettled? Why, when he knew how averse she was from the project, mention me to her as its originator or at all events its chief promoter? Did he simply use me to screen himself? Such a manœuvre was exactly consistent with his character; he had a way of shifting burdens that were uncomfortable for him, to the shoulders of others. Or was this not all? Had the cunning old man tried his cuttle-fish stratagem again, and hidden himself in a cloud of assumed carelessness? He had noticed nothing, not he, of all that was going on around him, and in which he was so much concerned, and thus quite innocently, accidentally indeed, he placed "his young friend" in a quite untenable position towards his pretty passionate daughter.

The blood rose hot to my brow as I came to this conclusion, and a new feeling rose within me and obtained a complete mastery of me. It had always been an easy thing for me to forgive heartily those who had injured me; so easy indeed that I often called myself a weakling, a man with neither heart nor gall; why then was that which I usually found so easy, so difficult for me now? Why did every oblique glance that had been directed at me across the table, the neglect, the indifference which had been suddenly exhibited, now all recur even in their minutest details to my memory? And why did I feel as if I should suffocate at that which I had hitherto borne with such apparent equanimity? I had suddenly struck a new vein in my own nature, a vein from which a bitter, black, poisonous stream flowed into the current of my healthy blood. I felt as an actual physical change what was really only a change in my disposition; the first violent emotion of ambition; the hot desire for personal revenge; the humiliation, the disgrace, if this were baffled; the desperate final resolution to emerge from the contest as victor, to attain my aim in spite of all and everything.

My aim! What was it then? The same which I had in view when I came here, or another? Or this and that both at once? Well might I at this moment have heard the warning voice of that stern wisdom which says that we cannot serve God and Mammon.

I had taken my seat upon a bench which stood in a thick copse of bushes. It was a quiet secret nook. The birds twittered pleasantly, a gentle breeze blowing over the garden brought sweet odors on its soft pinions, and a warm reviving sun beamed from the clear blue sky. The spot was so sweet and the hour so lovely that I had to yield to its soft solicitations, resist them as I might. My blood began to flow more calmly: I commenced to take an interest in a pair of finches that had just set up housekeeping in a knot-hole of a tree, recently transplanted here from the Rossow park, and were incessantly hurrying in and out of their little door. It was a peaceful pretty picture; the little creatures were in such a hurry, and were so unwearyingly busy, and evidently out of mere love--the world after all was not so wretched a place as it had just seemed to me.

With these thoughts flitting through my mind, I must have closed my eyes and fallen asleep; for I saw the bushes in front of me, and behind which ran a walk, bend apart, and a face appear between them; a lovely girlish face upon which the sunbeams and shadows of the leaves were playing, and partly from this, and partly because I was dreaming, I could not see clearly enough to decide if the light in the eye was anger or love. When at last I opened my eyes fairly, I could see the place in the bushes, but the sweet face was no longer there, but at the same moment I heard ringing laughter with shouts and the cracking of a whip, and mingled with the rest, piteous cries as of some one entreating, then suddenly a loud shriek of terror, which caused me to spring from the bench and hurry to the spot.

It was a circular space surrounded with shrubbery, which was used as a race-course and which I had myself used as a riding-school several times during my stay here as I endeavored to improve my imperfect horsemanship under the guidance of the coachman, Anthony, an old cavalryman. My lessons had been taken secretly in the very early morning, because I knew that Hermine, who was passionately fond of riding, was in the habit of practising here for an hour or two in the forenoon. Recently Anthony had told me that Fräulein Duff was also taking lessons, at the request of her young lady, who had suddenly taken into her head to have in her expeditions and visits in the neighborhood, another escort beside her groom, whom she frequently dispensed with anyhow. The thing appeared to me absolutely incredible, although old Anthony, who had nothing of the quiz about him, assured me with the most serious face that it was a literal fact; now I was to have my doubts removed by the evidence of my own eyesight.

In the middle of the track stood Arthur, who kept cracking a long whip incessantly, Hermine, who was laughing in great amusement, the two Eleonoras, in virginal white, clinging to each other as usual, and Anthony, who plainly hesitated whether to obey Arthur's repeated orders to keep away, or yield to the piteous supplications of Fräulein Duff, and help that unhappy lady off the horse. It seemed that for the first time they had let go the halter-rein, and the unskilful and excessively timid rider had been seized with sudden panic. In her desperation she had clasped both arms around the neck of the horse, a small shaggy-maned animal not much larger than a pony, who on his part plunged, kicked, and did his best to throw her entirely out of the saddle, as she was already half out of it. The spectacle was certainly indescribably ludicrous, but I could not bear to see for an instant my good friend in this predicament without coming to her assistance, and in a moment I had sprung to her side, caught the horse's head, and, as she held out her arms to me, lifted her from the saddle. I wished to place her gently on the ground, but in vain did I whisper to her to control herself and not make a scene. As she had previously clung to the horse's neck, so she now clung to mine, and seemed to find the greatest pleasure in swooning in my arms and upon my breast. If a situation of this sort under some circumstances is not destitute of charms for the cavalier, it assumes another character when his fair burden has fully reached those years when she can stand alone, and becomes perfectly intolerable when the spectators instead of commiserating him and hastening to his relief, only move their hands to applaud like mad, and break into inextinguishable laughter.

At least this was what Hermine and Arthur did, while of the two Eleonoras the second only looked at the first to see if she might laugh.

"Duffy, Duffy," cried Hermine, "I have always told you to beware of him!"

"Fräulein Duff," exclaimed Arthur, "do you want to tighten the curb-chain?"

"May I?" signalled the second Eleonora more urgently, and the first replied in the same way, "Laugh, thou innocent cherub!" and herself set the example.

"Come, let us leave them alone; they must have a great deal to say to each other," said Hermine, and hurried off amid peals of laughter, and the rest followed, all laughing like mad, even to the stolid old Anthony, who led away the horse, joyously whinnying, which was probably his way of joining in the general hilarity. The next instant I was standing alone with my fair burthen in my arms, mortified, offended, furious, as I had never been before, so that if a river had chanced to be at hand, I believe I would have pitched the poor Fräulein into it without a moment's hesitation. Happily the temptation was not presented to me, and as the laughter of the departing company grew fainter in the distance, Fräulein Duff recovered consciousness, and unclasping her arms from my neck, murmured: "Richard, you are my preserver!"

Richard was very far from being in the mood to fall in with the sentimentalities of the poor governess, and indeed had at this moment nothing like a lion-heart in his breast, but rather a little, spiteful, vindictive heart; so he let his poor charge slide very unceremoniously to the ground, and stood before her with gloomy brows and probably wrathful looks, for she clasped her hands as if frightened and whispered:

"Richard, for heaven's sake grow not desperate: however clouds obscure the sky, the sun still beams above!"

"Fräulein Duff," I said, "I must confess that at this moment I am in no temper for jesting, far less becoming the jest of others. You will therefore excuse me if I bid you good day."

I sought to extricate my hand from hers, in which I succeeded with some difficulty. But I had scarcely taken three steps when I heard such a lamentable crying and sobbing behind me that I could not help turning round. And there she stood in her green riding-habit, the skirt of which was wound round her feet like a serpent, and upon her pale yellow dishevelled locks a tall hat crushed out of shape, with a green veil, the strings of which were hanging over her face instead of behind.

"Dear, good Fräulein Duff!" I said remorsefully. "Come! I know you meant nothing but kindness." And I drew her arm in mine, and led her, still softly weeping, away from the place of terror, trying with friendly words to comfort her, until we reached the bench upon which I had been sitting, and where I compelled her to sit down, as she was completely overcome. Thus we sat awhile side by side, I staring gloomily at the sand, and she sobbing more and more faintly, until at last she lifted her tearful eyes to me and said:

"How can I requite your kindness, faithful noble friend?"

"By never alluding to it," I answered; "by never by a single word reminding me of this ridiculous scene; which, however, I swear, shall be the last in the wretched comedy which I have let them play with me here so long."

"Comedy?" said Fräulein Duff, pressing her handkerchief to her eyes with one hand, while with the other she held me fast, as I had risen to my feet--"You need calm, dear Carl--your blood is in a tumult--sit here by me--away with these black fever-phantasies!"

I had to laugh, angry as I was, and took my seat again by her side.

"O!" cried Fräulein Duff, "you are joyous and good, and still you understand human nature; and can you really be deceived in this maiden soul which lies before me as clear and transparent as yonder heaven;--yes as yonder heaven," she repeated, raising her arms poetically aloft where in all the sunny clearness of a spring afternoon, the bluest of skies peeped through the thick blossoming branches to our secluded nook.

"How can any one know that which under the best circumstances does not know itself?" I returned.

"You err, my friend," replied the governess. "You take the timid flutterings of this chaste virgin soul for attempts at flight; and yet it would only fly to you, the coy birdling, to you and you alone!"

"In the name of heaven and all the blessed saints, Fräulein Duff, hush! You drive me out of my senses, talking in that way!" I cried, now effectually springing up, and pacing up and down as if demented, which indeed I was; "I will hear nothing more of it and believe nothing more of it, not even if I hear it from her own lips!"

"You will so hear it," said Fräulein Duff.

I broke into derisive laughter.

"You will," she repeated; "only patience, Richard; only patience!"

"To the devil with patience!" I exclaimed.

"What shall be the wager, prince?" said the governess with a sly smile, lifting the thin forefinger of her transparent hand. "I summon old stories back to your heart; old stories. Don't I remember as if it were but yesterday, how she cried when she was but an eight-year-old child, and would not be comforted, when she heard that they had put in prison the handsome tall youth who always swung her so high? how she named all her dolls George, and used to put them in the parrot's cage and say that was her lover who was now in prison, and Poll was the jailor and wanted to snap off her lover's head with his crooked beak? And when I--for, my friend, a faithful educator of youth must be like the good gardener who grafts roses upon the thorny stock--when I tried to substitute for this fantastic form of childish grief, a more poetical one; when I told her of Richard, the Lion-hearted, the renowned in song and legend, and of Blondel the faithful singer, then she saw her ideal in this form alone, and wandered about, her cithern in her hand, until she found him she sought. Chance, or rather I must say the god of love so ordained it that she really saw him in prison, paler than of yore, it is true, but ever fair and stately, and thus has she carried his image in her heart for six, seven years, without being for one moment unfaithful to her Richard. You laugh incredulously, O my friend! You know not how adamantine is the soul of a true woman. Seven years! that seems to you an eternity. My friend, I know hearts that have loved--loved without hope--for five-and-thirty years!"

And the good Fräulein pressed her handkerchief to her eyes and sobbed aloud, but mastered her emotion presently and went on:

"But that is nought to the purpose now; I will not burthen your good heart, at this moment when its own destiny is pressing so heavily upon it, with the tragedy of another life which has been darkened with perpetual gloom by such a misunderstanding as now drifts over the horizon of yours like a passing cloud; nor is 'misunderstanding' the right word in your case: you understand each other as do the two birds there"--and Fräulein Duff pointed to the bush where the pair of finches were carrying on their courtship--"only you are human creatures with human sensitiveness and human pride. Alas, and she is not at all what she seems to be! How has she humbled herself to her love in her hours of solitude! How often has she kneeled before me, her face buried in my lap, and said that her beloved was high above her like a star, and that she could never hope to be worthy of one so strong, so brave, so noble. O my friend, she is proud of you! With what enthusiasm was she not filled when dear Fräulein Paula wrote her how you had acted in that night of the storm, and again 'there is no one like him, no one!' she exclaimed, when you were our preserver on the steamer last autumn. Yes, my friend, you are her religion; and she confesses you before all men, only not before you. Was she not fixed upon having her Richard in a picture at least, whatever her heartless father might say? Has she not adored this picture as if it were the image of a saint, and even fitted up her room in oriental style, that its surroundings might harmonize with it? The same room you now occupy: no other was good enough for her Richard; and her Richard must have it, let people shake their heads as they might, or her tyrannical father bawl in his hateful way, and I myself--I confess it--mildly remonstrate. My friend, to this--to such a step which would be ludicrous were it not sublime--belong courage, inspiration, all the intensest conviction of a great ideal love. The world delights to darken all that's bright--if that be a poet's word it is an eternal truth, and believe me, she herself has had her martyrdom to bear; it is no pigmy's task to maintain one's self against such a father. I will say no evil of him; I will say nothing of him, for where should I begin and where end? And yet she has achieved the impossible: the tiger fawns at the feet of the lamb."

"I learned that to-day," I replied.

"Remind me not," cried Fräulein Duff, "of that terrible hour, which was yet only a further proof of her love. O smile not so sardonically! Has it not been long her cherished hope, here, at this place which is so dear to her, some day to realize with her Richard her dream of love? And now to hear that she shall be driven from this paradise, and that the angel with the sword is none other than the lord of the paradise himself!"

"But," I cried, "am I the one who drives her from it? How can she make me responsible for a thing that she knows to be the cherished scheme and urgent wish of her father, who probably intentionally provoked the scene at the table to-day?"

"Very possibly," replied Fräulein Duff. "Who can fathom the wiles of this labyrinthine old man? Yes, if I rightly remember, she hinted at something of the sort when we were alone in her room, and she relieved her o'erburthened heart in a flood of tears."

"From what we have just seen, the relief appears to have been pretty effectual," I said.

"My friend," replied the governess, "he jests at scars who never felt a wound. Will you be less patient than I, who for all the wayward humors of the lovesick child have only a tear of pity in a smiling eye?"

"It is not given to every one to submit so cheerfully to tyranny as you do, dear Fräulein."

"I am exhausted," said Fräulein Duff, pressing her palm against her brow. "All my evidences glide off from this serpent-smooth eccentric."

"Then let us break off this conversation; besides, it is full time I had started for Rossow."

I had arisen, and the governess also arose, swung the long train of her riding-habit boldly over her left arm, and said, leaning on my right:

"Richard, do not go to Rossow: evil will come of it: trust me; I have Cassandra's foreboding spirit."

"I am, though from other motives, little inclined to go," I replied; "but I am resolved to do my duty and keep the promise I made to the commerzienrath, whether he asked it with a good or an evil intention, and be the consequences what they may."

"'I like the Spaniard proud,'" replied Fräulein Duff with an enthusiastic look, "but it is not always the haughty one who brings home the bride; the crafty one often reaches the goal. 'The monarch's pampered minion seeks her hand--' do you not fear Arthur?"

"To fear, in such cases, one must either hope or wish: I am not aware that I have indulged in either feeling."

Fräulein Duff in sudden terror drew her arm from mine, stopped and exclaimed:

"Great heavens, what do I hear! How am I to understand you? O Roderick, by all our hopes of bliss hereafter I adjure you--do you not love her then? Do you really love Paula, as that insidious Arthur is ever whispering in her ear?"

I was spared the necessity of answering this very ticklish question, for at this moment William appeared, calling me, and saying that the Rossow carriage had been waiting for me half an hour, and that he had been looking for me everywhere.

"Good-by, Fräulein Duff," I said.

"And no answer? None?" cried the governess with a look of agonized expectation.

"This is my answer," I said, pointing to the carriage.

Cassandra possibly found that oracular speeches are sometimes too hard even for seeresses to unriddle, for as the carriage rolled out at the gate I looked back and saw her standing where I had left her, her eyes and hands raised to heaven, in the attitude of the Praying Child.