The evening passed delightfully. The head of the house was late in giving the sign for retiring, and did so at last only in view of his wife's admonition that it was time to bid good-night, since he generally paid for so pleasant an evening by some hours of sleeplessness.
"Well, Emma," he said when he and his wife were again alone together, "do you now think that Bertha will be a disturbing element in our little circle? I fancy you are cured of your prejudice against her."
Frau von Osternau did not immediately reply, perhaps she would gladly have been relieved from the necessity of doing so, but when her husband repeated his question she said, "I have not yet made up my mind about Bertha. I confess that so long as I was with her, and listened to her gay, innocent talk, and looked into her dark, sparkling eyes, I was charmed with her; she captivated me as she did you and Albrecht and Herr Pigglewitch, and even Lieschen, who finally treated her as affectionately as she used to do when Bertha visited us years ago. But now that she is no longer present, and that I am not subject to the magic of her eye, I am doubtful about her. Was her amiability from the heart? She seems unaffected, but is she so in reality? I must defer giving you my opinion of Bertha until we have known her longer."
The same doubt that troubled the gentle mistress of the castle tormented Egon, as he paced his room to and fro, pondering upon the evening he had just passed. Frau von Osternau was right in saying that Bertha had captivated him; she seemed to him so wondrously beautiful that even Lieschen's lovely image paled beside her.
"If you had seen her a while ago you would not have fled from Berlin, and she would have been your wife," he said to himself, and his imagination ran riot in picturing what might then have been his future. To call that exquisite creature his own, to love her and be loved in return, to spend his life beside her,--the thought quickened his pulses and his temples throbbed.
He opened the window. The cool night air refreshed him. As he looked out into the black night of the garden, two strips of light were marked distinctly upon the dark lawn. The one was thrown there by the light in his room. Whence came the other? Involuntarily he wondered, whence? Ah, from Lieschen's window. Was she too gazing out into the dark night? Her image suddenly arose in his soul as clear and distinct as Bertha's, it looked at him reproachfully, the lips parted to say, "I detest nothing so much as falsehood!" He almost heard the words.
Clearer and more brilliant grew Lieschen's fair and lovely image, while Bertha's faded into night and darkness. He turned from the window calmed and cheered.
CHAPTER XIII.
[A WISE YOUNG JUDGE].
The spell which Bertha von Massenburg had cast around the inmates of Castle Osternau upon her first appearance within its walls did not fade, but grew stronger, and embraced in its charm every individual of the household, with the exception of Lieschen. Both the inspectors, Herr von Wangen and Herr Storting, and even all the servants succumbed to it. Her sweetness and gaiety were unvarying; she had a word of kindness for all, and knew exactly when to utter it.