Again the forester smiled to himself, as he went on smoking without any response.
Dorothea continued—
“The King is at Neustadt now. Will you take me over, some time, father? I have never seen the King.”
Old Franz interrupted her. He raised himself up, with a grunt of satisfaction, and stood looking at the opening in the wood.
Dorothea followed the direction of his glance, and uttered an exclamation.
Two men had just emerged from the shadow of the forest, and were walking through the sheet of sunlight which lay between it and the forester’s lodge.
The ages of these two men differed by a good many years. The elder of the two was a man of over forty, tall, with auburn hair, and restless eyes which glanced perpetually from side to side as he walked along. His dress was easy—a knickerbocker suit of brown velveteen, with a loose open collar, and crimson tie, and a hat of soft black felt with a wide brim. This brim he pulled down over his face as soon as the sunlight struck upon it, and thus partly screened his features from the curious gaze of Dorothea.
“Whom is he bringing with him?” she whispered to her father. “This is the first time he has not come alone.”
The forester took no notice of the question. His attention, after the first brief look, was engaged by the other of the two companions.
In itself the younger man’s figure was not striking. He was short, and yet too slender for symmetry. It was his face which aroused interest, and, with the long straight nose and pointed chin, conveyed the curious suggestion of a younger and handsomer Don Quixote. The delicate contour of the features was like a woman’s, and there was something at once strange and fascinating in the colour of the eyes, which glowed in the bright sunshine with that pale green flame only seen in the field of a rich sunset or in the hollow of certain shells of the Indian seas. But an almost uncanny note was that struck by the young man’s costume. He wore a close-fitting suit of a shade of green exactly matching the grass across which he was walking, so that it was nearly as difficult for the eye to follow the outline of his figure as it is to pick out a green caterpillar against a leaf. This affectation was carried out even to the green acacia stick which swung between his fingers. Only his hat and boots were black, the former similar to his companion’s, but enriched by the addition of a tiny band of gold lacework round the edge. He walked with a light, swift step, and as he came within view of the figures at the lodge gate his face relaxed into a pleased smile.