But though many looked at Topham, he looked at nobody. The fair face of the Countess Elsa was ever before his mind’s eye, filling it to the exclusion of all else. How could he live for a whole year without seeing her? How could he accept her orders as final? Yet what could he do? What could he do? He had been glad to get away from Rutile and that he might once more ask himself the question.
At the edge of the garden he paused and stared unseeingly down the long avenue stretched before him, hesitating whether or not to turn back. He cared little for his surroundings. Wherever he was, he saw only the brilliant tints of this Brazilian countess who wanted to become a German duchess.
Abruptly his mood changed; he wanted human companionship; and he faced back into the garden, vaguely wondering whether in its merry-making throngs he could find the escape from his own thoughts he craved.
The scene was a charming one. Beneath the radiant gaslights moved a vivid kaleidoscope of uniforms and gowns. Faces, now sternly handsome, now softly beautiful, flashed out and then disappeared. The animal houses, built after the fashion of the countries whence their occupants came, showed here and there through the trees—now an elephant house from India and next a pagoda filled with bright-colored Japanese birds. To Topham’s ears as the music hushed, came the sound of gay laughter and happy song, mingled with the tinkling of glasses from the little tables beneath the trees. The air was heavy with the scent of flowers or perhaps with perfume shaken from the gowns of the women. The Berliners were making merry in the hearty whole-souled German way that forgets the toils of the day the moment they are over and recalls them only when the time comes to resume them.
Insensibly the spirit of the place calmed the American. “We’ve nothing like this at home,” he mused, “More’s the pity. We’re too feverish, too anxious to finish, so as to be able to start again. Will we ever really finish, I wonder? Is it our climate or is it merely a passing phase of our character? We seem to drop out of it readily enough when we come over here. I don’t suppose there is a soul in all this crowd that is thinking of anything except the pleasure of the moment.”
He rested his hand on the back of a vacant chair and stared at the crowd. Hundreds of people were passing him every minute, but he knew none of them. He could not hope to see the countess, of course, and he cared little for any one else.
The fates, however, were propitious. Scarcely had he begun to watch, when he heard his name called. He looked up and smiled. It was Herrman Ferreira—he who had shared his compartment on the train, he whom he had come to identify with the Count del Ouro Preto. That is to say, it was the brother of his charmer—if not the rose it was the nearest thorn.
“Ah Herr Topham! Well found, my friend. You have quite recovered from the affair on the train?”
“Oh! Quite! And you?”
“But yes! I hope you have suffered no inconvenience from the loss of your papers?” The Brazilian’s tones were light, but Topham thought he read a note of anxiety in them.