CHAPTER V.
He was just crossing the threshold when a well-known voice struck his ear, proceeding from the corner where the little wine cask lay, covered up by green oleander bushes. "Buenas tardes, Señor Don Felix! You come rather late, but not too late to prevent you from dancing yourself tired. I have the honor to introduce you to one of my countrywomen, a genuine Gitana. Senorita ----."
But Felix had long ceased to hear what he said. Before him stood--Irene.
She looked marvelously charming as she stood there, her picturesque shawls and draperies thrown loosely about her, her hair ornamented with a heavy string of corals and gold coins, large silver rings in her ears, and her eyebrows slightly darkened and joined together over her proud little nose by a delicate line! And how her cheeks glowed at this sudden meeting with him whom, after all, she had expected, and for whose sake she had thus adorned herself; how she cast down her eyes--and breathed hard--and tried to smile, and yet had enough to do to keep back the tears that were welling up behind her eyelashes!
For a minute or two Schnetz stood gazing with delight at this most charming of all pantomimes. Then he came to the assistance of the embarrassed couple.
"You are not altogether unacquainted with each other," said he, in his driest manner. "Senorita Gitana has to thank this noble Andalusian for saving her life from the tempestuous waves of the lake of Starnberg. He will now steer her quite as safely through the dangers of a waltz, better, most certainly, than your humble servant, whose strut might possibly strike her as rather too Spanish. So at it, youngster! pluck up courage and lead the Gitanilla to the dance. After that she will show you how to read your future from your hand."
Felix recovered himself by a violent effort. "Shall we dance?" stammered he, in a scarcely audible voice, as he stepped up to Irene.
She nodded assent, and the glow on her face burned hotter, but she spoke not a word, and did not even raise her eyes. She seemed to him so utterly transformed that, even now, when he felt her hand resting on his arm, and saw her gliding along at his side, he was almost inclined to doubt again whether it could really be she. He had never seen her so yielding, so tremblingly timid, so incapable of uttering a word; and now when he held her close and swung her in the dance, he felt more than once as if he were whirling about in one of those strangely happy dreams that change, in some curious way, the most familiar features, and lead us only into the arms of the unattainable.
Yet, all the while he felt so wonderfully happy that he was content to leave everything just as it was, and strove only to clasp this miracle as closely as possible to his breast, and to enjoy the full blessedness of this meeting as long as the dream would last. Nor did she try to resist; indeed, she herself felt as if it were a necessity for her to press her head and glowing face close to his shoulder, and, with half-closed eyes, to submit herself absolutely to his guidance. He could not see her face, for she held her head bent down; but his eyes rested on her soft, brown hair, and his arm, clasped about her waist, could feel how her heart was beating. No word came from the lips of either of these two happy beings; they did not even press one another's hands in silent sympathy, for the simple reason that both felt that there was nothing special for them to communicate--two souls had merely become one again. Nor did they take heed of those about them, who gazed with earnest interest upon this noble couple the moment they entered the room--the strangers with simple pleasure, or perhaps here and there with envy, the initiated with heart-felt joy at the triumphant success of their work.
For them there was no outside world at this moment, no friends or strangers. Besides the beating of their own hearts they felt nothing but the music; and it seemed to them a heavenly kindness on the part of fortune, that allowed them to dance instead of forcing them to talk with one another; that the wild and merry tones of the instruments gave them wings that lifted them above the earth, the one clasped as tightly to the other as only the dance could have made permissible before so many witnesses.
Neither of them felt the slightest fatigue, or thought of stopping to rest. Indeed, when the music finally came to an end, it seemed to them as if they had just begun; and they stood in the middle of the hall, startled, and almost painfully still, clasped in one another's embrace as they had been in the waltz. His arm reluctantly released her figure, but he could not bring himself to give up her little slender hand. However, this did not appear to attract any attention, since the other couples also were very tender with one another, and had quite enough to do in looking after their own affairs.
None of their intimate friends crossed their path. So the majo succeeded in leading his gypsy unchallenged into the adjoining room, from which even Schnetz had taken care to steal away.
They walked arm-in-arm, vigorously fanning themselves, down the flower-decked side of the hall, past the little tables, and stood suddenly, before they suspected it, before the buffet, which had been put up at the other end, and before which a number of waiter-girls were selling cold viands, cake, ice, and various kinds of drinks.
"Will you drink something?" he said.
It was the first word he had addressed to her. It struck him as being very stupid that he had nothing more important to say to her after such a long silence. But she did not appear to think it strange at all.
She shook her head quite seriously, drew off her glove, and took a large orange from one of the plates. "That is better after dancing," she said, in a low voice. "Come, let us eat it together."
They seated themselves at one of the small tables, and she drew off the other glove and began to peel and divide the beautiful fruit with her white little fingers. But all the while she never looked at him.
"Irene!" he whispered--"is it really possible? You are here--I--we are so unexpectedly brought together again."
"Not unexpectedly," replied she, in a still lower tone; "I knew that you would come--and that is the only reason why I came myself. Do you believe I cared anything for the dancing and the masks? Feeling as I did--"
Her voice failed her. The tears rose to her eyes. He bent down close to her, and pressed his lips to the little hands that were so busily at work.
She gave a slight start. "Oh! don't, please!" she whispered, pleadingly. "Not here, they can see us. O Felix! is it really true? You are going away--away forever?"
He did not answer for a moment, but sat absorbed in the happiness of being so near her, of listening to her voice, of feeling her warm breath as it came from her sweet lips. A reckless joy took possession of his heart, an exhilarating determination to face boldly whatever fate might have in store for him.
"Why talk of such sad things?" said he at length--for she still kept her anxious gaze fixed upon him, and seemed unable to understand the joy that lit up his face--"there will be time enough for that later on, when the ball is over and the intoxication gone, and the harsh daylight shines once more upon our lives. This is my first happy evening for many months; I thank you for giving it to me. I always knew that you loved me, and if I were only a different man from what I unfortunately am--"
"O Felix!" she pleaded, looking him full in the face. "You grieve me; it is not kind of you to shame me so, for I suffered so much before I could bring myself to admit my fault and see myself as you must have seen me for a long time past. O Felix! that you could love me in spite of all--that you could grieve for me--but wait! I have a thousand things to tell you--I must tell you them to-night--at once--but not here among all these merry people--and look there, I see some of your friends coming--only tell me how and where--"
He had no time to answer, for at this moment Jansen approached, with Julie hanging on his arm, both with faces that made no attempt to conceal the part that they had taken in bringing about this great happiness. They refrained, however, from making any remarks that might embarrass the young couple, and simply invited them to be their vis-à-vis in a quadrille that was just going to begin. A pressure of the hand from Jansen was all that passed between the two friends in regard to the event. But Jansen and Julie helped to eat the oranges that were divided into sections and passed about by Irene; then, separating into couples again, they entered the hall, where the other couples had already taken their places.
However, they were by no means sorry to be left alone, and they got up a quadrille of their own in one of the corners near the windows, with Schnetz and Angelica and the Capuchin and the headless martyr for side couples.
And indeed these eight figures were well calculated to afford an inexhaustible fund of amusement for one another, and the novelty of the contrast between the two beautiful and the two grotesque couples attracted around them all those outsiders who, for one reason or another, had not taken part in the dance. Nothing could have been finer or more pleasing than when this blonde, blooming Venetian figure, in the fullness of its ripe beauty, advanced to meet this slim, foreign-looking, dazzling gypsy, and the hands of the two charming creatures met, and their eyes beamed upon one another. On the other hand, it was one of the funniest and most picturesque sights imaginable when gaunt Alba bore down with his stiff, spidery walk upon the holy martyr, while the Capuchin paid homage to the Suabian maiden in all kinds of cringing and fawning attitudes. The latter seemed to be the happiest one in the whole company at the success of the plan, concerning which Schnetz had given her a hint some time before. She was perpetually making mistakes in the different figures of the quadrille, for she was always studying either the Spanish or the Venetian girl, and was, moreover, obliged to communicate to her partner her observations in regard to their particular fine points. She afterward found a still more attentive listener in Rossel, who had seated himself near by in the character of a spectator, holding Homo between his knees, and now and then sweeping with a careless hand the strings of the guitar that the faithful old animal still bore upon his back.
When the dance ended, Julie, whose heart was glowing with gladness and love, could not refrain from taking Irene to her arms and imprinting on her lips the congratulation she did not dare to put in words. Irene understood her, and blushed; but she returned the embrace with hearty good-will, and nodded also to Angelica as if she were an old friend. Then she took Felix's arm, and allowed him to escort her to the supper-room.
"Shall we take a seat at the little table again?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"I must be still more alone with you," he said. "Only be brave and follow me. The air here begins to be oppressive."
"Where are you going to?"
"Outside. Not a breath of wind is stirring, and it is the most beautiful spring-like weather. And you are not heated at all! I will wrap you up in my cloak. Take my word for it, we will not even catch a cold in the head."
"Go out into the dark garden?" She involuntarily slackened her step. "What will they think of us?"
"That we love one another, my darling, and want to be alone. Besides, it will occur to very few of these good people to miss us, or to make any remarks about the subject. And since you have once ventured into this bad society, and no one knows what may happen to-morrow, and whether there will still be time then--"
"You are right," she interrupted hastily. "It was merely the last sign of the stupid old habit. Come; I think myself I should not be alive to-morrow if the night passed without my having told you everything."
He drew her close to his side, and they left the hall together. The angel with the flaming sword had fallen asleep over his mug of beer; but as Felix had been the last to arrive, he easily found his hat and cloak in the dressing-room without Fridolin's assistance. He carefully wrapped a large woolen shawl, which he recognized as belonging to Angelica, about the head and shoulders of his sweetheart, and then threw his own cloak over the whole, so that she would have been well protected even for a colder night.
"But don't cover up your face entirely; I must have a chance to find your lips!" he whispered, and immediately kissed her as if to put her to the test. But she held him tight, and with a passionate submission, of which he had hardly believed her capable, returned his kiss and held up her glowing face to his, submitting to his stormy caresses in happy confusion, and returning them anew.
Not until she was startled by a noise did she ask him in a pleading voice to desist. Then he put his arm about her and went out with her into the mild winter's night, covered peacefully in its snowy mantle. No star looked down from heaven, but it seemed to these two happy beings, wandering all alone among the trees, as if the world about them were in flames, and they were walking through it unscathed, for in their hearts there raged a hotter fire.