The carriages were at the door together. “Hans may drive,” cried Hamilton, springing into the phaeton after Madame Berger; and as long as they were in sight he seemed to be wholly occupied with the arrangement of her shawl.
“Hildegarde! Hildegarde! where have you hidden yourself?” cried Madame Rosenberg, about an hour afterwards, and a voice from the very end of the orchard answered, “Here, mamma, I am coming directly;” but even while speaking, Hildegarde turned again, and with folded arms and lingering steps continued her sentinel-like walk.
The next day Hamilton felt very uncertain whether or not he had acted wisely. Hildegarde was so upright and free from coquetry herself that he feared she would not easily understand his motives were he, in exculpation, to explain them; and even if he made them evident, she would condemn them. He met Madame Rosenberg on his way to breakfast; heard the half-joking, half-serious expostulations he had expected, and replied to them as usual, with a mixture of petulance and impertinence.
He approached Hildegarde, hoping sincerely that he should find her angry, or at least offended, but all his efforts to discover anything of the kind failed; she was, perhaps, a little less cheerful than usual, but not enough to admit of his questioning her. Before dinner she received a letter; the handwriting was unknown to him, but though burning with curiosity to know from whom it came when he saw her unusual trepidation on receiving it, he dared not ask her, though he would not have hesitated to have done so the day before. In the afternoon, when he expected her to walk, she sent Gustle to tell him that she had a long letter to write, and could not go out. The next few days she chose to assist her mother in preserving fruit, and then appeared an interminable quantity of needlework to be done. Hamilton felt the change which had taken place in their intercourse without being able to cavil at it. He felt that he was to blame, but he nevertheless got out of patience, and began to drive into Munich every day. No one seemed to think he could be better employed, and many and various were the commissions given him by different members of the family.
One day, just as he was telling Hildegarde that he should not return until late at night, as he intended to go to the opera, Madame Rosenberg entered the room; she held in her hand a silver hair-pin of curious filigree work, and exclaimed rather triumphantly, “Well, here is Lina Berger’s silver pin, after all; not found in the garden, where she said she lost it, but in your room, under the wardrobe. Monica saw it when she was scouring the floor.”
“Very likely,” said Hamilton; “Madame Berger mounted a chair to get at my scarlet geranium, which I hoped to have placed out of her reach on the top of the wardrobe; by making a spring she caught the flower-pot, but descended on the edge of the chair, which fell with her to the ground. I was greatly alarmed, as after the first scream of fright she became unusually quiet, and although she said she was not hurt, she lay on the sofa without moving or opening her eyes long after I had transplanted my poor geranium, and mourned over it,” he added, looking towards Hildegarde.
Madame Rosenberg laughed. “That was a trick to prevent you from scolding her about the plant, which she saw you rather valued.”
“Perhaps it was,” said Hamilton, colouring, “and I never suspected it.”
“Well, you can tell her your present suspicions to-day when you give her the hair-pin, you know;” and she held it towards him as she spoke.
“I never go to Madame Berger’s,” said Hamilton, and he was glad to be able to say so, “but if you choose to give it to Hans, he can leave it at her house when I go to the theatre.”