Runeck made no reply. He had not idly dreaded this interview: he knew that he had betrayed himself in that moment of deadly peril and agony untold!
And his adversary, who had now learned to know her power, was inexorable and wanted to enjoy her triumph at any price. It had cost her trouble enough to impose her chains upon this brave, proud man,--chains which all others were so glad and willing to wear; now he was conquered, and she wanted to see him, too, at her feet.
"Eric bitterly laments that he sees so little of you now," she began again. "If you come to Odensburg--and you must come sometimes--you confine yourself exclusively to his father's work-room and decline every invitation to join the family circle. Your engagements at Radefeld furnish you with the pretext for this mode of procedure, but I know better what keeps you away.--It is my presence and my brother's."
"Mein Fräulein----"
"Do not attempt to deny it. From the very first minute, I have been conscious of the mute hostility that you bear to us, and have often enough asked myself why--I have never found an answer to my question."
"Then ask Herr von Wildenrod, he will give you that answer."
The tone of his voice should have warned Cecilia, it sounded hollow and threatening, but she paid no heed to it.
"Something happened to make you dislike one another that time you first met, did it not? I have suspected it! But since then years have elapsed. Oscar has long forgotten the affair, as you have heard from himself. Will you alone be so implacable? And may I not know what happened then--will you not tell me, too?"
Her voice sounded yet softer and sweeter than before; her large, dark eyes were lifted imploringly to the man, who clearly felt how the net was being drawn closer and closer about him, how will and power were succumbing to the flattering sounds of that voice, as clearly he also suspected that the beautiful soulless creature there by his side was only playing a contemptible game with him and feeling nothing but the triumph of vanity. Then he rallied his forces with a last desperate resolve to burst his chains.
"Do you speak as commissioned by Herr von Wildenrod, Baroness?" he asked, with such terrible bitterness, that the young lady started and looked at him in surprise.