"Really, Herr Lassen! Do you think every English girl is a fool? I suggested Herr Feldmann. He shook his head, murmuring something about his being unable to get away; and then came the only thing that really scared me. 'Of course you could go in the care of some of our people, but it would be better not, perhaps; so difficult to spare our folks just now;'—all that in a sort of meditative tone, and then with a change which in some way altered his very features, he fixed me with a look which seemed to pierce like red-hot gimlets into my very brain and read every thought in it, and asked me to suggest some one else. I positively shrivelled up inside, if you know what I mean; felt like a fish on the end of a fork thrust suddenly into a blazing fire. I don't know what I said or did. It must have mesmerized me, I suppose. I think I shook my head and stammered out that I didn't know of any one else; but I can't be certain. All I clearly remember is a feeling of intense relief when his eyes left mine, and I heard him say something about seeing to the matter. I never felt anything like it in my life before; and if I gave you away, it was then."
"I've had a look from him like that and can understand how it made you feel. That's why I can't place the man. Hullo, look! There come his wife and daughter with the Countess. We'd better join up. Won't do to let them think we're too thick;" and we quickened up to Rosa as the others reached the spot, and all stood chatting. Presently Lottchen drew me aside from the rest, declaring that she never saw anything of me now, and after a moment, Nita, attracted by the child's loveliness, joined us.
I said something or other which made them both laugh, and just as the others turned round and looked at us, I had the surprise of my life.
A good-looking woman was passing, holding a tot of a kid by the hand; she glanced at me, stopped dead with a look of profound astonishment, paused to stare, hands clenched and pressed to her bosom, eyes wide, mouth agape, and every feature set as rigid as stone.
"Johann!" little more than a whisper at first, and then loudly, "Johann!" and without more ado she rushed up, flung her arms round my neck, and burst into a flood of passionate sobs mingled with equally passionate terms of affection.
CHAPTER XIV
ANNA HILDEN
"Johann! Johann! Oh, my dearest! Oh, thank God I have found you at last! Oh, my long lost darling!" raved the woman ecstatically, while her child ran up and clung to my coat, calling, "Papa! Papa!"
A pleasant situation considering the circumstances and the fact that a number of other people, attracted by the woman's hysterics, began to cluster round us.