CHAPTER XXXI.
[GLOWING EMBERS.]
"Papa is lazy to-day," Freddy remarks the next morning, breaking the silence that reigns at the breakfast-table and looking pensively at his father's empty chair. It is late, Freddy has drunk his milk, and Rohritz and the tutor are engaged with their second cup of tea. The host, usually so early, has not yet made his appearance.
"You ought not to make such remarks about papa," Katrine corrects her son on this occasion, although she is usually very indulgent to Freddy's impertinence. "Run up to his room and tell him I sent you to ask whether he took cold last evening, and if he would not like a cup of tea sent to him." In two minutes the boy returns, shouting gaily, "Papa sends you word that he does not want anything; he has nothing but a bad cold in his head, and he is coming presently."
In fact, the captain follows close upon the heels of his pretty little messenger.
"I was troubled about you," Katrine says, receiving him with a sort of timid kindness which seems painfully forced.
"Indeed? Very kind of you," he makes reply, in a very hoarse voice, "but quite unnecessary."
"You seem, however, to have taken cold," Rohritz interposes.
"Pshaw! 'tis nothing. I lost my way in the dark last night, and got into a drift this side of K----: that's all.--Well, Katrine, am I to have my tea?"
"I have just made you some fresh; the first was beginning to be bitter," she makes excuse. "Wait a moment."
The captain is about to reply, but a fit of coughing interrupts him.
"Papa barks as Hector does at the full moon," Freddy remarks, merrily.
Katrine frowns. Why does Freddy seem so thoroughly spoiled to-day?
"I told you just now that it is very wrong in you to speak in that way of your father."
"Let him do it; papa knows what he means," the captain replies, turning to his little son sitting beside him rather than to his wife. "You're fond enough of papa,--love him pretty well,--eh, my boy?"
"Oh, don't I?" says Freddy, nestling close to his father; "don't I?" That any one could doubt this fact evidently amazes him. The captain talks and plays merrily with the boy, never addressing a single word to Katrine.
Breakfast is over. For an hour Katrine has been sitting in her room, some sewing which has dropped from her hands lying in her lap, listening and waiting for his step,--in vain. Another quarter of an hour glides by: her heart throbs louder and louder, and tears fill her eyes. Suddenly she tosses her work aside, rises, and with head erect, looking neither to the right nor to the left, walks with firm, rapid steps along the corridor to the captain's room. At the door she pauses,--pauses for one short moment,--then boldly turns the latch and enters. Is he there? Yes, he is standing at the window, looking out upon the quiet, white landscape. Rather surprised, he looks back over his shoulder at his wife, for he knows it is she: he could recognize her step among a thousand.
"Do you want anything?" he asks, dryly.
"N--no."
The captain turns again to the snowy landscape.
"What are you gazing at so steadily?" Katrine asks him. "Is there anything particularly interesting to be seen out there?"
"No," he replies; "but when the room is cheerless, one looks out of the window for diversion."
A pause ensues.
"What shall I say to him? what can I say to him?" she asks herself, uneasily. The blood mounts to her cheeks; she stands rooted to the spot, not venturing to approach him. At last, she begins with all the indifference at her command, "You have forgotten our wedding-day today, for the first time. Strange!"
"Very," the captain rejoins, with bitter irony.
Another pause ensues. Katrine is just about to withdraw, mortified, when the captain again turns to her.
"I did not forget. No, I do not forget such things; and, if you care to know, I had provided the yearly, touching surprise in celebration of the anniversary; but I suppressed it at the very last moment."
"And why?"
"Why? A woman of your superior sense should be able to answer that question herself. After having been laughed at eight times for my well-meant attentions, I said to myself finally that it was useless to serve for the ninth time as a target for your sarcasm."
She comes a step nearer to him.
"I had no desire to laugh to-day."
"Indeed! Hm! then you can open the packet on my writing-table. I had the boy photographed for you, and the picture turned out very well."
She opens the packet. 'Tis a perfect picture,--Freddy himself, bright, wayward, charming, one hand upon his hip, his fur cap on his head.
"He is a beauty, our boy!" she exclaims, smiling down upon the picture in its simple frame.
"Our boy!" the captain murmurs. "You are immensely gracious to-day; you usually speak of him as if he belonged to you only."
Katrine blushes a little, but, without apparently noticing this last remark, says, "He begins to look like you, the dear little fellow!"
"Indeed? Tis a pity----"
"You really would do better to sit by the fire and warm yourself than to stand shivering at that cold window."
"The fire has gone out, and there is small comfort in sitting by the ashes."
"You ought to have made the fire burn afresh."
"I tried to," he replied, with significant emphasis, "but I failed."
"Really!" she says, laughing archly in the midst of her vexation; "you must have tried very awkwardly. If I am not mistaken, there are embers enough under the ashes to set Rome on fire. I should like to see."
She kneels upon the hearth, scrapes together the embers, and with great skill and precision piles three logs of wood on top of them. One minute later the wood is burning with a clear flame.
"Jack!" she calls, very gently.
He starts, and looks round.
"Jack, is the fire burning brightly enough for you now?" she asks.
As in a dream he approaches her.
"Now sit down," she says, in a tone of gay command, pulling forward a large, comfortable arm-chair, "and warm yourself."
He obeys, looking down at her half in surprise, half in tenderness, as she kneels beside him, slender, graceful, wonderfully fair to see, with the reflection from the fire crimsoning her cheeks and lending a golden lustre to her light-brown hair.
Her breath comes quick, as it does when there is something in the heart, longing for utterance, which will not rise to the lips. She had thought out so many fine phrases early this morning in which to clothe her repentance, but they all stick fast in her throat.
The bell rings for lunch. Good heavens! is this moment to pass without sealing their reconciliation?
He sits mute. The wood in the chimney crackles loudly, sometimes with a noise almost like a pistol-shot.
Katrine still kneels before the fire, growing more and more restless. On a sudden she throws back her head, and, casting off the unnatural degree of feminine gentleness which has characterized her all the morning, she exclaims angrily, her eyes flashing through burning tears, "What would you have, Jack? How far must I go before you come to meet me?"
"Oh, Katrine, my darling, wayward Katrine!" the captain almost shouts, clasping her in his arms. "At last I know that 'tis no deceitful dream mocking me!"
A light tripping step is heard in the corridor. Both spring up as Freddy's merry little face appears at the door:
"Lunch is growing cold."
In the evening, as the couple are sitting in the drawing-room in the twilight, Katrine says,--
"If only there were no such thing as war!"
"What makes you think of that?" asks the captain.
"Why, because I should beg you to go back to the service, if I were not so mortally afraid of a campaign."
"No need to take that into consideration," the captain rejoins, "for in case of war I should go back immediately: not even you could prevent me, Kitty. But tell me, could you really summon up courage enough?"
"Could I not? It will be very hard eventually to part from the boy, but sooner or later we must send him to the Theresianeum, and--to speak frankly--even a separation from Freddy would not distress me so much as to see you degenerate in an inactive life."
"You really would, then, Kitty?--would voluntarily subject yourself again to all the inconveniences and petty miseries of the soldier's nomadic life?"
"Try me," and her large eyes are very serious and determined as they look into his own, "try me, and you shall see what a comfortable home I will make for you in the forlornest Hungarian village."
"Ah, you angel!" her husband exclaims, taking her soft little hand in his and pressing it against his cheek. "What a pity it is that we have lost so much time in all these nine years!"
"A pity indeed," she admits, "but 'tis never too late to mend,--eh?"
At this moment Rohritz enters the room, as is usual at this hour every afternoon, to get a cup of tea. He observes, first, that the pair have forgotten to ring for the lamp, and, secondly, that they stop talking upon his entrance; in short, that, for the first time, he has intruded.
"You have come for your tea," says Katrine. "I had positively forgotten that there was such a thing. Ring the bell, Jack."
Before the evening is over Edgar has made a very important discovery,--to wit, that however cordially one may rejoice when two human souls after long and aimless wanderings come together and are united, any prolonged association with a couple so reconciled is considerably more tedious than with an unreconciled pair; wherefore he leaves Erlach Court on the following day.