Repuin's face flushed crimson,--he bit his lip, and said, with forced calmness, "Have you forgotten, madame, that by your husband's permission I this morning requested to be allowed to conduct you to supper to-night, and that you consented to my request?"
"I have forgotten nothing. Count Repuin, not even the words you addressed to me a few moments ago; let me beg you to leave me."
"I refuse to yield my right," the Count angrily retorted. "If you deny me thus, I must appeal to Herr von Sorr to support my claim."
"I think not, Count Repuin. My friend Frau von Sorr is, I trust, secure from all insult beneath my father's roof."
The words were Adèle von Guntram's. She had arrived, leaning upon Count Styrum's arm, just in time to hear Repuin's angry threat, and now, stepping to her friend's side, she turned to Count Repuin with a degree of dignity and resolution that added much to the Assessor's already great astonishment at such a manifestation on the part of so gentle and amiable a girl, and said, "You have permitted yourself to be carried away by your annoyance, Count, to the extent of addressing a lady in terms inconsistent with our German ideas of courtesy. I must beg you to apologise to my friend."
Count Repuin angrily compressed his lips, but he perfectly understood that he had gone too far, and that upon this antagonist he had not reckoned. If he would not entirely lose the game he was playing he must control himself, and, difficult although it might be, comply with Adèle's demand. He therefore smothered his rage, and, taking Adèle's hand and kissing it with respectful humility, he said, "You shame me, Fräulein von Guntram, yet I cannot but be grateful to you for recalling me to a sense of the duty which, according not only to German ideas, but also to those entertained in Russia and throughout the world, every gentleman owes to a lady whom he has been so unfortunate as to offend. I beg Frau von Sorr's pardon from my soul, and venture to hope for her forgiveness, the more confidently as my irritation was the consequence of my great disappointment at losing a pleasure which she will admit I had some right to anticipate."
Frau von Sorr heeded his apology no more than his threat, but turned to Adèle, who replied to his words and farewell bow by a cool and dignified curtsey.
As soon as he was out of hearing the young girl gave a sigh of relief "Thank Heaven, he is gone! He actually terrifies me, and I had to muster up all my courage to become my poor Lucie's defender. The man is indescribably odious,--Russian from head to foot,--rough, coarse, and brutally passionate one moment, courteous, smooth, and smiling the next, but always false and untrustworthy. However, he has gone, and we will not spoil our pleasure by thinking of him an instant longer. Cousin Karl, let me present you to my dearest friend, Frau von Sorr. My cousin, Count Karl Styrum, Lucie dear; and now let us enjoy our supper together."
CHAPTER II.
Count Karl Styrum had never been very fond of large entertainment, and had accepted his uncle the President's invitation on this evening only because he did not wish to be rude to a relative whom he had not seen for years. The ball had hitherto been rather a bore; he did not dance, and, stranger as he was in this society, he took little interest in watching others dance. The only figure that his eyes followed with any pleasure in the waltz was his cousin Adèle's, and he had intended to slip from the room unobserved, when her gracious and cousinly invitation to him to conduct her to supper frustrated his unsocial plan.