"What," said he, raising his voice and addressing the count, "your tutor, my young friend? Heavens forbid! The counsellor of your youthship, for a brief occasion, I grant it; but for the rest I trust I have more grateful work in the world."
"I do not press you to accompany me. I can quite well go alone," said Steven. "You need not return with me—unless you wish it."
The other made an ironical bow, and the young man dropped his eyelid under the gaze that read his thought as in a written page. Certainly, keen as he had been but the day before for the fiddler's company, it was the last thing he now desired.
"Oh," retorted Geiger-Hans, "never fear, our ways now diverge. Yours is too lofty for me, comrade. You are for the peak, I am for leveller roads. Beware how you fall." He was shaken with laughter—laughter that somehow left Steven more uncomfortable than angry.
Then the wanderer cocked his instrument and set up a wild skirling air, to the rhythm of which he turned and marched out of the courtyard. Ill at ease, Steven watched him go, go.
* * * * *
Count Kielmansegg drove in state to the foot of the crag; and, while his box and valise were loaded upon the mule that was again to climb the rocky path to the feudal nest of granite, he paused to look down at the waters that rushed past the road, so swift and dark, so cruelly cold, from unexplored caverns on the flanks of the mount. As he stood the travelling fiddler overtook him and swung by on the highway.
"We shall meet soon again, I trust, friend," Steven cried after him as he himself turned to ascend the path.
"Who knows?" said the fiddler over his shoulder, even as on their first parting by the edge of the forest, but this time in a grave voice.
The young man glanced up at his destination, black and grim against a pale sky, and a chill came upon him like a sudden shadow.