This determination he carried out during the ensuing weeks. He could do so all the more easily by reason of the part which he was compelled to play with regard to the rest of the party. Herwarth, and Leo who came daily with Hilda from the castle to join in excursions among the mountains, took no notice whatever of Eva's betrothed. They never even looked at him, and Aline only spoke to him when common courtesy required that she should do so.
Eva did not hold herself so entirely aloof; she preserved towards Bertram the same cold politeness that she had always shown him, allowing him to call her by her first name, although she never addressed him otherwise than as Herr von Bertram. All familiar approach on his part she repelled by a frigid reserve. Bertram was made to feel that the slightest attempt to assert his rights as her betrothed would be fruitless, and he could not but see how much more familiar was her manner towards Delmar, Herwarth, and even Leo than towards himself.
Warned by his enemy, Guido never ventured to take part in the daily excursions. He made one of the party only at breakfast, dinner, and supper, and here Delmar endured his society no longer than he thought absolutely necessary.
If, at the end of an hour at most, Bertram made any attempt to join in the general conversation, Delmar was sure to make some remark which contained a command to leave in disguise,--a command which the former dragoon hastened to obey. His observation, quickened by terror, told him that at the first sign of rebellion against his enemy's authority the storm which he so dreaded would burst above his devoted head.
In these last few weeks Paul had greatly changed. Often when the others were conversing eagerly he would sit gazing dreamily out upon the distant mountains, in a way very unlike himself. When he roused himself from such brooding reveries, Bertram almost always caught an angry glance from his dark eyes, which convinced him more and more that he meditated striking a blow at his prospects, and that, for some hidden reason, his hand was stayed for the moment. He guessed that this blow was the breaking of his engagement with Eva, for any one could see the pleasure Delmar took in the growing intimacy between Leo and Fräulein Schommer, and that he would gladly remove any obstacle to their happiness.
The firmer this conviction became in Guido's mind the more was he strengthened in his resolve to insure his own future by the possession of the ebony casket, and he availed himself of every opportunity for the private interviews he had contrived with Nanette. Almost every evening they met in his room, and to his great satisfaction he saw that he was gradually destroying in her frivolous mind all mistrust of him, although every evening when she left him he still heard the low creaking of the bolt as it was pushed into its staples, and Eva's door remained not only closed to him but fast bolted.
CHAPTER XVI.
Four weeks had passed since the arrival of the strangers at the inn at Tausens; every day, favoured by the clear summer skies, they had made delightful excursions among the mountains, and still no one talked of leaving; Uncle Balthasar indeed, instigated thereto by Aunt Minni, who, in spite of her comfortable quarters, missed the luxuries of the villa in K----, had once or twice asked his niece how long she intended to stay at Tausens, but he had received no decided answer. The kindly old man, seeing how his pet was enjoying herself, would have been the last to wish to cut short her enjoyment, even had he not been so thoroughly at his ease as he was. For his own part he declared he never had been so much entertained as in the agreeable society in which he now found himself. Every evening the party at the inn was joined by the cousins from the castle, and by the judge, the forester, and the collector from the village, and Uncle Balthasar was in his glory. Also he spent as much time as he could with 'dear Guido,' only regretting that his favourite was not duly appreciated by the rest of the party. He gladly accompanied him upon his walks from time to time, never dreaming that the former dragoon's only reason for desiring his society was the hope that he entertained of gaining some certainty as to his future prospects from the old man's artless talk of Eva and her relations with Delmar and Leo.
In fact, poor Uncle Balthasar was deeply grieved that Delmar, Herwarth, and Leo should treat Bertram with such haughty reserve, and that Eva did not comport herself towards her lover as a girl should, but showed a decided preference for the strangers. The kindly soul therefore took care that Bertram should always have a place at the breakfast-table which made it possible for him to avoid all necessity of speaking with Delmar or Herwarth.
Such a seat Uncle Balthasar had provided, between himself and Aunt Minni, for his 'dear Guido' on a certain clear, rather cool morning in August, when the party had assembled upon the balcony at the Post. It was rather late, nearly nine o'clock; there was to be no long walk to-day, because the young people had made so distant an excursion the day before. Leo and Hilda had not come down from the castle, but had invited Eva and Delmar, with Herwarth and his betrothed, to spend the day with them in the castle garden and in seeing all that there was of interest within the old walls.