"In a month! Does that seem to you so short a time?"
Gabrielle laughed.
"It is just four times seven days. You must manage to live through them in some way; but after that we shall be coming to R---- ourselves, you know. You have a great deal to do with my guardian, have you not?"
"With Baron von Raven? Certainly. I work in his bureaux, as you are aware, and have to make reports to him from time to time."
"I hardly know him," said Gabrielle, indifferently. "I have just seen him now and again when he has come on a short visit to the capital, and that is all. The last time was three years ago. On that occasion his Excellency hardly deigned to notice me--treated me, in fact, exactly like a child, though I was then quite fourteen. You may imagine that I was in no way delighted at the prospect of living under his roof for the future, until"--here she smiled roguishly--"until I made the acquaintance of a certain George Winterfeld, and heard from him that he had the privilege of being one of my guardian's secretaries."
A strange look flitted across George's features, a look which seemed to say he was of a different opinion as to the "privilege."
"You deceive yourself if you build any hopes on that circumstance," he replied gravely. "The intercourse I hold with the Baron is purely official in its nature, and he well knows how to restrict it within the narrowest possible limits. In all else I stand wide as the poles apart from him. A young, middle-class man, holding as yet only a subordinate government appointment, does not find admittance to the Governor's circles, and can hardly venture to claim acquaintance with the Baroness von Harder. There will be distance enough between us, even though I come daily to the house in which you dwell. Here in this holiday freedom we have had the chance of learning to know, to love each other."
"In reality, you owe it to our boat which struck on the sand-bank just at the right time," put in Gabrielle. "Do you remember our first meeting, George? To this day mamma believes that she was in deadly peril, and looks on you as her deliverer, because you brought us cleverly through the shallow water to land. She would hardly have consented else to receive such frequent visits from one bearing your plebeian name; but the man who has saved one's life must be an exception, of course. If she did but know that her hero has already made me a declaration of love!"
The undisguised triumph expressed in the last words seemed to grate upon the young man. He fixed his eyes on her countenance with a scrutinising, anxious gaze.
"And if the Baroness should hear of it, sooner or later, what would you do?"