CHAPTER III.
Schnetz, who all this time had never ceased to stride up and down the room, now stepped up to the old man.
"Sit still where you are, Herr Schoepf," he said. "Stay here where it is cool until you are thoroughly rested. Meantime I will go and find the girl, and talk to her. She has a liking for me, possibly because I have never tried to win her favor."
With these words he left the old gentleman. He first searched through the house and garden after the frightened bird, but finally had to make up his mind to go into the wood after her.
After much unsuccessful searching and calling, he finally saw her white face and red hair shimmering from out the green shadows, in a little cleared spot on the gentle slope of the grove, from which she could command a view of the entrance of the park.
"What a trouble you are making, Zenz!" he shouted to her. "What are you running about in the lonely wood for all the forenoon, when there is enough to be done in the house? Old Katie has worked as hard to find you as if you had been a needle in a haystack."
The girl had hastily sprung from the mossy seat on which she had been crouching, and seemed to be holding herself in readiness to dart away. Her round cheeks had suddenly flushed crimson.
"Is he still there?" she asked.
"Who? Don't be so childish, Zenz. The idea of running away from a good old man, as if he were Satan himself!"
"I won't go home till he has gone," she said, with a defiant shake of her head. "I know what he wants. He wants to lock me up in his hateful, lonely house, where no sun or air gets in. But I have never done him any wrong, and I won't go--I won't bear it--I'd rather have him kill me right here."
"You're out of your senses, girl! Do you know him? What do you know about him?"
She did not answer immediately. He saw how wildly her young breast heaved, how her eyes were fixed on the ground, and how her teeth bit the little twig she held in her hand.
"He is the father of my mother!" she finally burst out, her face taking on a look of intense hatred. "He drove my poor dear mother out of his house because of me--that is, before I ever came into the world. Oh, he is so stern! My mother never dared to go back to him as long as she lived. Then, when she was going to die, she wrote a letter to her father asking him to take care of me, and she made me promise by all that was holy to carry this letter to my grandfather as soon as she was dead; and I promised I would, though I never could get up much love for him, and no one can blame me for it either. But, when I came to Munich, I felt terribly forlorn and forsaken at first, for I didn't know a soul, and I thought to myself I'll just take a look at him and see what he's like. So I waited in front of his house, with my packet in my pocket, until he went out in the evening. I tell you truly, Herr Lieutenant, I was so miserable and unhappy that even if he had only looked just the least bit kind I would have been very glad to go up and say to him: 'I am Zenz; people say I am the very image of my poor dear mother, and my dear mother was your daughter, and now she is dead and sends you this letter!' But when he came out of his house so stern and still, and looked neither to the right or left, but only stared at the ground, just as if he didn't care anything at all for the dear world all about him--hu! it made my flesh creep! Nothing in the world shall ever force me to have anything to do with him, thought I to myself; and I let him go by as if he had been a perfect stranger. Still, I thought I would leave the letter for him, so I made some inquiries about him of his landlady; And I heard from her that he hides in his lodgings like an owl in a hollow tree; no one comes to see him, and he goes to see nobody; he gets no letters and he writes none. There was a little looking-glass hanging in the landlady's room, and I happened to see my face in it, and it looked to me as if I had an ashy-gray skin and faded hair. I think most likely the glass was colored blue, but for all that I felt as if it was warning me--'This is the way you'll look before long, if you shut yourself up with your grandfather in his dark den where no sunbeam will ever reach you.' So I went away and took good care not to deliver my packet, for it might have betrayed me. And that very same evening I got acquainted with Black Pepi, and went to live with her, and never sent him my poor, dear mother's packet until I went into the country. But how he found out where I was, or what he wants of me--for he must have the sense to see that I don't want to have anything to do with him--I--"
"Zenz," interrupted the lieutenant, "be a sensible girl, and at least get acquainted with your only relation before you rebel against your mother's last wish. I can assure you you wouldn't have any fault to find with him; and if he should treat you like a prisoner or try to coerce you in any way--are not your old friends at hand? Do you suppose that Herr Rossel, or the baron, or I myself, would suffer any one to ill-treat our little Zenz? If you could only hear the old gentleman talk, and see how sorry he is for all he did and did not do for his daughter, and how anxious he is to atone for it to his grandchild! No, Zenz, you are too sensible a girl to be so childishly frightened by the spectres your own imagination has called up. And, besides, what do you think is going to become of you when the summer is over and we all go back into the city again?"
He waited a moment for her answer. But as none came, and she seemed to be lost in thought, he drew a step nearer, and, taking one of her hands, said, in his truehearted way:
"I know what you are thinking, my child. You are in love with the baron, and you are thinking you will remain near him as long as it is possible, and then perhaps he will love you in return; and you have no thought for anything else. But you ought also to tell yourself how miserably it must all end at last. He won't marry you--you must make up your mind to that--and what will be the upshot of such an unhappy love you have seen, unfortunately, in the case of your poor mother."
She withdrew her hand from his; but looked at him quietly, and almost with something of her old light-heartedness.
"You mean well by me, sir," she said. "But I am not so foolish as I may look. I never imagined for a moment that he would marry me; he wouldn't even love me, no, not if I had saved his life and should be near him ever so long. He loves some one else--I know that for certain--and I don't blame him for it a bit, and if I choose to go on liking him, in spite of all that, it is my affair, and nothing that anybody says will make any difference. Until he is well again, and can get up and go about, I am going to stay out here; and no one knows better than you that I don't eat my bread in idleness, and that you are not able to get along without me. Just tell this to my--to the old gentleman; and as to what may happen afterward, why, that is something none of us can tell yet. But I won't let myself be caught, and if he should use force--I would jump into the lake sooner than let myself be made a slave of!"
She turned sharply on her heel and began very calmly to walk up the hill, no longer as if to flee, but merely because she had spoken her last word. Schnetz had always had a secret liking for her, though he had no very high opinion of her understanding or her virtue. But he could not help feeling a certain respect for her as she had just shown herself to him.
"She knows what she wants, at all events," he growled, "and won't allow herself to be deceived, not even by her own poor heart. There is good blood in the little red fox."
Upon returning to Schoepf he exerted himself to the utmost to convince the old gentleman that, for the present, it was useless to try and do anything. But he promised to do his best to reconcile the girl to the thought that she could no longer be her own mistress, but must consent to be taken under the protection of a loving grandfather. It touched him to see how much the old man was encouraged and cheered by the thought that she would come to him in the end. He even began to make plans for the external arrangements of their future life together. As if this were a matter that would not brook the slightest delay, he could not be prevailed upon to stay even until the heat of the day was over. He must go back at once and look for larger and more cheerful lodgings, and must buy some furniture, so that he would be prepared to receive his grandchild just as soon as she felt like coming to live with him. Besides, he did not want to be the cause of the poor child's wandering about in the woods any longer, for it was clear she would not enter the house again until he had gone.
Schnetz accompanied him through the park. When they were almost at the gate he asked:
"Don't you propose to take any steps to find out the whereabouts of the child's father? Or do you know that he has died since all this happened?"
The old man stood still, and his eyes took on that stern expression which had scared off Zenz that night in the street.
"The scoundrel!" he cried in a loud voice, passionately striking the gravel path with the umbrella that he always carried in summer. "The miserable, perjured villain! Can you seriously suppose that I would let myself be outdone in pride by my dead daughter, who would have nothing to do with the author of all her misery, since he appeared to have forgotten her? Do you think me capable of such a thing as sharing this living legacy of my daughter, that I have just found again as if by a miracle, with that robber of women's honor--admitting even that he would not now choose to deny all share in it? I would rather--"
"My good Herr Schoepf," coolly interrupted Schnetz, "in spite of your white hairs, you are rather more passionate than is consistent with the interest of your grandchild. Now what if anything should happen to you, and the good girl should a second time be left an orphan in the world? In case the worst should happen, she ought at least to know just where she stands; to say nothing of the fact that it can never do any harm to a child to know to whom it is indebted for the doubtful privilege of belonging to this world."
The old man reflected for a moment. His manner grew more gentle.
"You are right," said he at last. "Scold away at me; it is the old artist blood in me that will never listen to reason--not even when all art is passed, and only a little drudgery is left. But that scoundrel--if you knew how cordially we received him into our home! Though there again our pride came into play, for he was a baron, and up to that time we had had no intimates of higher rank than artists, except a few officers; and besides this he was a stranger, a North German, and he pleased us immensely; for he was such a lively, wide-awake, chivalrous young gentleman, a great hunter, and he used to be always saying he would never rest until he had hunted lions in Africa--"
"Good God! Hunted lions? And his name--don't tell me, my good friend, that his name was--"
"Baron F----. I had actually forgotten the name, until I found it in my poor Lena's testament. Heaven knows what ever became of him, and whether he was punished for his mad whim, and for all the wrong he inflicted upon my poor child, by dying a miserable death under the African sun, torn to pieces by wild beasts. The name seems to strike you. Can it be that you have ever met the wretch?--or perhaps you even know where he is?"
Schnetz had recovered himself in a moment. He reflected that at best it would be quite superfluous, while it might perhaps be extremely disastrous, if he told the old gentleman in what intimate relations he stood to the individual in question. Neither did he see that it would be of any advantage to the girl, if, before she had begun to feel any love for her grandfather, she should find a father who would be even more of a stranger to her, and who would be able to count still less upon her filial affection. And besides, in the interest of his unsuspecting old tent-comrade, he shrank from making any premature disclosures.
He answered, accordingly, that it was true the name was not altogether unknown to him; indeed, so far as he knew, the father of the girl was still living; it was possible, however, that they would be doing her a poor service if they should be over hasty in enlightening her on the subject. The first thing to be done was to induce her to become reconciled to her grandfather.
As the old man was, at heart, entirely of this opinion, he took his leave, evidently feeling much comforted and full of glad hopes; though he still lingered a little, secretly hoping he might catch at least another distant glimpse of the shy little creature. But the girl took good care to keep out of sight. So that at last, with a quiet sigh, her grandfather had to set out upon his homeward way. Schnetz stood at the gate, looking after him.
"A mad farce, this life of ours!" he growled under his mustache. "The only thing still wanting is that my old lion-hunter should come riding past his father-in-law, smoking a cigar and gazing complacently at the white-haired old boy, who would be powdered still whiter by the dust kicked up by his nag's hoofs; and that then he should stop here in the park gate, and make inquiries of Zenz in regard to the health of our patient, playfully pinching the child's cheek just as he would any other pretty servant girl's, or giving her a pourboire if she held his horse for him for ten minutes. And then his niece, our proud little highness! What big eyes she would make if I should tell her that the little red-haired waiter-girl was her own, though not exactly her legitimate, cousin!"