Werner dropped the letter disappointed. "Nothing more?" he muttered. "I need not have opened this letter, although I had better know what she intends to do." He tried to put the letter in its envelope again, but it could not be done, the latter was too much torn. There was nothing for it but to destroy it. He tore it up therefore, and threw it into his waste-paper basket. Then putting several unimportant letters into the post-bag, he took it out to John, and despatched the old man upon his useless errand.
CHAPTER XV.
The time at which the old Freiherr expected his family to assemble about him every evening in the garden-room had come. Werner on his way thither encountered his brother, who was awaiting him at the foot of the staircase. In a few indignant words Arno informed him that Fräulein Müller had acquainted him with the manner in which her well-meant warning had been received, and said all that was possible in so short a time to induce his brother to leave Hohenwald as quickly as he could. "In the castle," he added, "there are none who do not look upon your fine-spun schemes as treasonable plotting, and it is unjust that peril should threaten all on your account."
Werner, however, who had now entirely recovered his usual self-control and ease of manner, treated his brother's words with contemptuous indifference, and thus the two men entered the garden-room together, the elder dissembling his jealousy and rage beneath an easy amiability of manner, the younger vexed and indignant at his failure to influence the brother whose ambitious vanity and want of principle were abhorrent to him.
The Finanzrath evidently felt perfectly secure, and exerted himself to prove to Fräulein Müller his sincere regret for his late want of self-control. He begged her for one of her charming songs, and meeting with a curt refusal, acquiesced in it without a word. He was all that a courteous, high-bred cavalier should be; and yet, in spite of his efforts to maintain the conversation, it flagged continually, for each member of the little circle felt a secret oppression, which made it impossible to join in it with any interest.
Arno was unusually taciturn; he possessed none of the versatility that enabled Werner so quickly to forget the serious matters that had lately occupied him. Even Celia seemed to have lost all her wonted sprightliness; she sat buried in thought beside her father's chair,--her stool placed so that he could not see her face, for she could not look him frankly in the eyes to-night, and her heart was too full to allow her to take any part in the conversation. This would soon have become monosyllabic in spite of Werner's exertions had he not casually mentioned a visit that he had paid a few days before to Grünhagen. So favourable an opportunity of turning the conversation upon Kurt did not escape Lucie; she asked Werner, with evident interest, how young Herr von Poseneck liked Grünhagen, and whether he was readily adapting himself to the European mode of life. Werner could not understand why Lucie should take so vivid an interest in Kurt, but he was glad to have found a topic upon which he could command her attention. He expatiated willingly upon Kurt's excellent capacity as a landed proprietor, and upon the admirable understanding that seemed to exist at Grünhagen between uncle and nephew.
The Freiherr listened silently; that the topic was not an agreeable one to him the frown gathering on his brow told plainly.
Arno, too, said not a word, but sat glancing now and then at Lucie with displeasure in his look. What could be Fräulein Müller's aim in this show of interest in Kurt? If it were intended as a punishment for his jealousy, it seemed but a petty revenge.
Celia, however, sat quite still, with sparkling eyes and glowing cheeks; she said nothing, but not a word that was spoken escaped her. Werner suddenly appeared kind and amiable in her eyes as he thus praised Kurt.
For a while the Freiherr endured Lucie's continued inquiries about Grünhagen and Kurt; but at last his patience was exhausted. "You seem to take a remarkable degree of interest in this fellow Poseneck, Fräulein Anna," he said, crossly; "for Heaven's sake leave him to himself in Grünhagen,--the less I hear of him the better I am pleased!"