"What is it?"
"It is simple enough. You are often busy here while Eva and the rest are on the balcony. I might come to you here, but that would be too dangerous; we might be surprised here at any moment, and all would be lost. And you cannot come to my room either, for fear of being seen; but if you will always take care that the bolt on this side of the door between the rooms is slipped back, we can be together as often as we choose and not a human being suspect it."
Nanette gave an ugly laugh as Bertram made this proposal. "Not so stupid as you think," she said. "Thank heaven I can see through a millstone, and have long known your silly admiration for Fräulein Aline's doll-face. You would like to pay her a quiet visit now and then. No, I thank you, Herr Lieutenant!"
"You are perfectly insane with jealousy!" Bertram exclaimed, forgetting his wonted caution in his surprise at an accusation so unfounded. Warned however by the angry flush on Nanette's cheek, he restrained his vexation, and continued in a tone of mild reproach: "How can you entertain so odious a suspicion, my pet? I detest that waxen-faced Aline almost as much as her friend. I cannot understand how you can speak so."
"Are you to be trusted, I wonder?"
"You will really provoke me, Nanette. This is all I have in return for my affection. At great risk I come to look for you, to speak with you for a moment, and you receive me thus unkindly. Come, lock the door into the passage and unbolt the one leading to my room, where we can then talk further without any danger. We can hear the moment Frau Schommer leaves the balcony, and you can slip back here again without the slightest fear of detection."
The invitation was too tempting to be refused. Nanette locked the door into the passage, and unbolted the one between Fräulein Schommer's and Bertram's rooms.
Guido's end was attained to his great satisfaction, and he now had so much to say to Nanette, of the future that awaited her when he should have married the heiress and her wealth should be his, that the girl quite forgot her former jealous ill humour, and imparted to him the import of the various conversations she had lately contrived to overhear between her mistress and Fräulein Aline. Fräulein von Schlicht had done all that she could, Nanette said, to induce Eva to break her engagement, but Eva had declared firmly that she would keep her promise.
This intelligence was very soothing to Bertram, and he began to think that it would perhaps be better to resign his designs upon the casket; but he reflected that Eva's purpose would never be maintained should she ever learn from Delmar that her promise was the result of falsehood upon the part of her betrothed. Half an hour passed thus in confidential discourse, when the door leading from the passage to Aunt Minni's room was heard to open. Nanette, at this note of warning, slipped back into Eva's apartment, and the next instant Bertram heard her push the bolt home. He uttered a low curse. "D--n her stupid jealousy!" was the flattering phrase bestowed upon Nanette, as he walked to the window and sat down to ponder upon some other means of obtaining the casket. He could devise none, save by taking it at night. Although Eva's room was often open in the daytime, there would be no possibility of concealing it elsewhere in the house, where it would be immediately missed; and to carry it off to the forest by daylight, when the inn was full of people, would be equally impossible.
Nevertheless he did not resign his project, and he determined to accustom Nanette to a frequent unbolting of the door, in hopes that, grown careless, she might some time forget to bolt it again.