"You will not?"
"I--I cannot!" There was an almost agonized repulse in these words. Oscar smiled again.
With a gentle pressure he released her hand. Maia! How strangely he pronounced the name, it was a sound that penetrated the young girl with a feeling never experienced before, at once sweet and torturing, but she breathed deeply, as though relieved, when Eric approached and said playfully:
"I do believe, Oscar, you are slyly paying court to our little Maia."
"For the present I am only paving my way to the intimacy of future relationship," was the cheerful reply. "Maia has just given me leave to give up addressing her formally as Miss Dernburg. You have no objection, I hope."
"Not the least," said Eric, laughing. "You will play the part of uncle to our little girl, with great dignity, I fancy. Only see to it that you treat her with all due deference!"
A singular expression flitted across Oscar's features at this harmless conception, but he made no response to it. Maia had not heard this last remark, for she had hurried to her father, who had joined the two older ladies. With an almost impetuous movement, she cuddled up to him, as though she sought shelter in his arms, shelter from some unknown peril, that still lay far away in the dim distance, and which, nevertheless, cast a shadow athwart the glowing present.
Cecilia still sat by the fireside, and Runeck, too, had not left his place--the "stony guest," as Cecilia had awhile ago styled him in a whisper to her betrothed. Egbert's silence had indeed been striking, at least to Eric and Maia, Baron Wildenrod thought it natural enough under the circumstances. The young man evidently felt out of place in the circle, to which he did not belong of right, and the favor evinced him by this invitation evidently oppressed more than it gratified him. Cecilia fully shared her brother's sentiments on this point, and, like him, up to this time, she had only taken very casual notice of the young engineer. And yet it had not escaped her that he was observing herself; she took this, of course, for admiration, and therefore, in the most gracious manner, now opened a conversation with him.
"You were already acquainted with my brother, it seems, Herr Runeck? That is a remarkable coincidence."
"Hardly, in a large city," was the quiet reply. "As for the rest it was only a very brief interview that we had, of which, as you have heard, Herr von Wildenrod thought no more."