Hollfeld observed her action.
"Aha!" he cried, with a malicious laugh, "that looked almost tender. If it were not for my cousin's seven and thirty years, I might actually be jealous! Perhaps you supposed that he would immediately descend from his vehicle and gallantly offer you his arm to escort you to your home! You see he is too conscientious; he denies himself that indulgence, and prefers to fulfil a sacred duty. He is an iceberg, for whom no woman possesses a single charm. You owe his behaviour to you to-day, which was so very courteous, not to your enchanting eyes, O bewitching Gold Elsie, but to his desire to provoke my honoured mamma."
"And does nothing deter you from ascribing such mean motives to the man whose hospitality you enjoy so freely?" cried Elizabeth, provoked. She had determined not to reply to him again by a single syllable, in hopes that she might thus weary out his pertinacity; but the manner in which he spoke of Herr von Walde overcame her self-control.
"Mean?" he repeated. "You express yourself strongly. I only call it a little revenge which he was fully justified in taking. And as for his hospitality,—I am only using now what will be all my own at some future period; I cannot see that it should alter my opinion of my cousin. Besides, I am the one to sacrifice myself, I deserve all the gratitude. Is my devotion and attention to Fräulein von Walde to go for nothing?"
"It must be a hard task to pluck a few flowers and carry them to a poor invalid!" said Elizabeth ironically.
"Aha! you are, as I am happy to observe, jealous of these little attentions of mine," he cried triumphantly. "Did you seriously suppose for one moment that I could really be in love with her, while my sense of beauty was so perpetually outraged? I esteem my cousin, but I never forget for one instant that she is a year older than I, that she limps, is crooked, and——"
"Detestable!" Elizabeth interrupted him, beside herself with the abhorrence he inspired; she hastily crossed the broad forest-road. He followed her.
"Detestable, say I, too," he continued, endeavouring to keep pace with her; "especially when I see your Hebeform by her side. And now I beg you, do not run so fast; let there be the peace between us of which I dream day and night."
He suddenly passed his arm around her waist and forced her to stand still, while his glowing face, with eyes sparkling with unholy fire, approached her own. At first she gazed at him speechless and stupefied, then a shudder convulsed her frame, and with a gesture of utter aversion she pushed him from her.
"Don't dare to touch me again!" she cried in a clear ringing voice,—and at the same moment she heard the loud barking of a dog near her. She turned her head in joyful surprise towards the spot whence the noise proceeded.