"I believe that Bruno's better nature will now assert itself," said Irma. She forced herself to speak, and trembled when she thought that the man who sat beside her might suddenly ask her: "What have you done with your better nature?"
The carriage stopped before the palace. Irma alighted and Gunther drove home.
Once in her room, Irma pressed both hands to her heart as if to allay the storm within. "Must I beg every one to prove his friendly feeling by silence, or to admit that I am right? Those who despise the world's laws and have soared above them, had better cease to live." She aroused herself by a violent effort and began the letter to her father. She complained that she had had no news from him for a long while. She wrote about Arabella, informed him that Bruno had become a steady paterfamilias, and, at last, mentioned the birth of the grandson. She also wrote that Arabella begged for a few lines from the grandfather, and that they would render her happy.
Irma found her letter a difficult task. Her pen usually responded to every varying phase of feeling; but, that day, it seemed to stumble and hesitate. She leaned back in her chair, and picked up a letter that she had found lying there. It was Walpurga's. She smiled while reading it, and enjoyed the satisfaction of having benefited a fellow-creature who, although distant, held her in faithful remembrance.
The waiting-maid announced Bruno's groom. Irma had him come in. He had come to express his master's desire that the gracious countess should at once dispatch the letter she had promised to write, and said that he had been ordered to take it to the post-office himself. Irma sealed it and gave it to him.
Bruno, seated in his dog-cart, was waiting at the corner of the palace square. The groom handed him the letter. Bruno put it in his pocket. He drove to the post-office and, with his own hands, dropped a letter into the box. This epistle, however, was directed to a lady. The one intended for his father he retained in his possession. He was determined not to humble himself, either through his sister or his wife.
The box into which Bruno dropped the perfumed billet-doux contained letters for old Eberhard,--letters which Bruno could not intercept.
CHAPTER II.
On the very morning that his first grandchild was born, Count Eberhard was returning, with a light heart, from a walk in the fields. They had begun, that day, to gather the first harvest from a large, tray-formed tract of land which had once been a swamp. Eberhard had drained the desolate tract with great care and judgment, and now it produced unequaled crops. The sight of the ripened grain waving in the gentle breeze, inspired him with pure and happy feelings, and he thought of the generations to come, who would derive sustenance from a tract of land rendered fertile by him.
He felt no desire to impart his happiness to another. He had accustomed himself, in the past, to live within himself. His one real life-burden he had confessed to his daughter. He thoroughly enjoyed the repose which solitude alone affords. He imagined that pure reflection had conquered all passion. He always obeyed the inner voice of nature; there was no one for whose sake he was obliged to repress it. He had faithfully endeavored to perfect himself, and, while placing himself beyond the reach of temptation, had, at the same time, withdrawn from social activity.