He could not refuse so amiable a proposal, but he promised himself but little entertainment in her society, since, although cousins, they were now almost entire strangers to each other. He had last visited his uncle, his mother's brother, ten years before, when Adèle was a pretty little girl with fair curls, whom he had made a pet of and called his little sweetheart. In the busy years that ensued he had almost forgotten her; indeed, he had hardly remembered her name. Now he had come to M---- to arrange a personal adjustment with his uncle of a lawsuit between them concerning an inherited estate. It had been the cause of a not quite friendly correspondence, and the Count had not looked forward to a renewal of intercourse with his relatives without some misgivings. He was all the more pleased, therefore, by the cordiality with which his uncle received him, and begged him to forget the odious lawsuit entirely, except when it absolutely demanded attention as a matter of business.
"I think, my dear Karl," the President said, when the Count first presented himself at his house a few days before the birthday ball, "we can manage to leave all quarrelling over mine and thine to our lawyers; let us do all we can to aid in the settlement of the question, but if this settlement be delayed, do not, for Heaven's sake, let it disturb the friendliness of our relations with each other any more than should our difference in politics, which latter, most unfortunately, embittered your father towards me during the last years of his life; to the day of his death he could not forgive me because we Prussians were victorious in 1866. I trust that you, Saxon soldier though you be, are more placable, and will reflect, as I do, that your dear mother was my favourite sister, and that we loved each other faithfully as long as she lived. It was not our fault, as we both thought, that our grand-uncle involved us in a lawsuit by an ambiguous will."
Count Styrum could not possibly fail to reciprocate so kind an expression of good will on his uncle's part. He did not, it is true, accept the pressing invitation extended to him to leave the hotel and make the President's house his home while in M----, but he promised to spend every spare hour beneath his roof. He did this the more readily since his cousins welcomed him as cordially as their father had done. On Adèle's part this amiability was certainly sincere, while Heinrich, who was an assessor in his father's office, probably acted in mere compliance with his father's wish in the matter. Adèle was thoroughly pleased with her cousin,--she knew nothing of the lawsuit, and cared nothing for politics,--Karl was to her simply the son of an aunt whom she had dearly loved, and with whom she could remember passing happy weeks, in Dresden, in her childhood, when "Cousin Karl" had always been so kind to her. During all the long years of absence she had never forgotten him, and she treated him now with a degree of sisterly familiarity which greatly pleased him. He would gladly have availed himself of his uncle's kindness to pay frequent visits to his relatives, but his stay in M---- was very short, and most of his time was occupied in interviews with his lawyers, who would not listen to a friendly adjustment of the matter in hand, so that until this evening he had scarcely done more than exchange a few cursory remarks with Adèle. He had been favourably impressed by her frank and easy gayety of manner, but she had not aroused in him any deeper interest, and he had accepted with some reluctance her invitation to be her escort to supper, since this would of necessity detain him longer than he had proposed to stay at the ball. Suddenly, however, his feeling with regard to her changed entirely, upon witnessing her spirited opposition to Count Repuin. How beautiful she was as she confronted the Count with indignation flashing from her eyes! and how lovely was the change in her expression when she turned to her friend with such tender affection! Involuntarily he compared the two young creatures before him.
A few minutes previously he would have pronounced Frau von Sorr the more beautiful of the two,--the most beautiful woman, indeed, whom he had ever seen; but now there was no doubt that the golden-haired Adèle, with her earnest eyes sparkling with anger and then melting with tenderness, was, if not the more beautiful, by far the more attractive. It was strange that never until this instant had he been impressed by this exquisite development of the pretty child into the lovely woman.
And now, when, after Count Repuin's departure, she gayly entreated her friends to forget the unpleasant scene they had witnessed, and when, seated at the supper-table, she did all that she could to dissipate Frau von Sort's melancholy and win a smile from her, she seemed to her cousin more enchanting than ever. She so managed the conversation that neither Frau von Sorr, who could not soon forget what had just occurred, nor the Assessor, who was rather ashamed of the part he had played, was obliged to talk much, while Count Styrum was drawn on to speak of his travels, and this all the more willingly as he felt he was seconding Adèle's efforts in so doing.
The Count had resigned from the army at the close of the war, and, that he might be prepared for the management of the large estates to which he was heir, had spent a year in attending the lectures at Tharandt. Then, in company with a former comrade in the army, who had been his fellow-student also, Baron Arno von Hohenwald, he had travelled for a year in Belgium, Holland, England, and Italy, being finally called home by the death of his father.
The Count was an admirable narrator as well as observer: no one could throw more interest than he into the details of his travels, and on this occasion he surpassed himself. Not only did Adèle listen with sparkling eyes, now and then asking an eager question, but Frau von Sorr was gradually aroused to attention and interest. The Assessor alone was very silent and not at all comfortable. In addition to the mortifying consciousness that he had failed entirely to undertake the defence of Frau von Sorr against Count Repuin, he could not help experiencing a decided envy of Count Styrum, who was thus monopolizing the conversation, and evidently making a favourable impression upon Adèle.
Although he enjoyed the proud consciousness that among the gifts with which kind nature had endowed him, and of which he would not boast, a talent for conversation which had frequently stood him in stead was most conspicuous, here he was undeniably thrown into the background, and this, too, in the presence of his adored Adèle. He several times attempted to divert the talk from these overrated adventures of travel, but without success, until at last, upon the frequent mention by the Count of the name of his companion, Arno von Hohenwald, he broke into the conversation with, "Do I understand you, Count? Are you really speaking of Baron Arno von Hohenwald? I can scarcely credit that you travelled for a year with that gloomy misanthrope, that inveterate woman-hater. And yet it must be so, for to my knowledge there is but one family of Hohenwalds in Saxony, and I ought to know, for I am distantly connected with them myself. I never judge others with severity,--it is not my nature,--but I cannot help pronouncing the Hohenwalds, that is, the old Baron and his son Arno, haughty, disagreeable, inaccessible people, who have very little intercourse with any one, not even their nearest relatives. The best of them all is Arno's brother Werner, the Finanzrath;[[1]] it is possible to get along with him; but my cousin Arno?---- Really, I cannot understand how you managed to travel with him for a whole year."
"Your judgment of my friend is very harsh and unjust," Count Styrum replied, gravely. "And yet I cannot blame you for it, for there are few who know how to value Arno von Hohenwald, or who, indeed, have any knowledge at all of him."
"Of course; he is absolutely inaccessible. Can you deny that he is a perfect misanthrope, refusing to mingle in any society, and repulsing discourteously every advance made to him?"