"Enough!" he said, waiving the topic. "Let us say no more on this disagreeable subject. I have offered you a home under my roof, and I am glad that you have accepted the proposal. Since my wife's death, I have been in some degree dependent on strangers, who preside well enough over the establishment, but who cannot in all things fill the place of the mistress of the house. You, Matilda, know how to entertain, and like receptions, fêtes, dinners, and the like--now it is precisely in regard to these matters that I have felt a want. Our interests coincide, you see, and I have no doubt we shall be mutually satisfied with each other."
He spoke in his usual cool and measured tone. Evidently Baron von Raven was not disposed to glory in the rôle of benefactor and deliverer, though to these relatives of his he had really acted as both. He treated the matter altogether from a business point of view.
"I will do all in my power to meet your wishes," declared Madame von Harder, following her brother-in-law's example as he rose and went up to the window.
He addressed a few further indifferent questions to her, asking whether the arrangement of the rooms was to her taste, whether she received proper attendance and had all she required, but he hardly listened to the torrent of words with which the lady assured him that everything was charming--delightful!
His attention was fixed on a very different object.
Just under the window of that boudoir was a little garden attached to the door-keeper's lodge. In this garden Miss Gabrielle was walking, or rather racing round and round after the door-keeper's two children, for the walk had resolved itself into a wild chase at last. When the young lady that morning undertook a short excursion "to see what the place was like," as she expressed it to her mother, the place itself had but little part in the interest she manifested. She knew that George Winterfeld came daily to the Government-house, and it must be her task, therefore, to arrange some plan for those frequent meetings which George had declared to be impossible, or, at best, exceedingly difficult.
Miss Gabrielle did not adopt this view of the case, and her reconnaissance was now directed to one end and aim, namely, to discover precisely where the Baron's bureaux, in which the young official was employed, were situated. On her way, however, she fell in with the lodge-keeper's small seven-year-old boy and his little sister, and quickly made friends with both. The bright, lively children returned the young lady's advances with confiding alacrity, and these new acquaintances soon drove all thoughts of her exploring expedition, and alas! of him for whose sake it had been undertaken, entirely into the background.
She allowed the little ones to lead her into the small garden which was attached to the lodge, and was entirely distinct from the Castle-garden proper. She admired with them the shrubs and flower-beds, and the three rapidly advanced in intimacy. In less than a quarter of an hour a game was set on foot, accompanied by all the requisite noise, to which Miss Gabrielle contributed fully as much as her young playmates. She bounded after them over the beds, stimulating them to fresh efforts, and provoking them to ever-renewed gaiety.
Unbecoming as this no doubt was in a young lady of seventeen, and in the Governor's niece, to an unprejudiced beholder the spectacle was none the less charming. Every movement of the young girl's supple form was marked by unconscious, natural grace. The slight figure, in its white morning-dress, flitted like a sunbeam between the dusky trees. Some of her luxuriant blond tresses had grown loose in the course of her wild sport, and now fell over her shoulders in rich abundance, while her merry laughter and the children's happy shouts were borne up to the Castle windows.
The Baroness, looking down from her point of observation, was struck with horror at her daughter's indecorous conduct especially when she became aware that Raven was intently following the scene below. What must that haughty man, that severe stickler for etiquette, think of the education of a young lady who could comport herself in this free-and-easy manner before his eyes? The Baroness, apprehending some of those stinging, sarcastic comments in which her brother-in-law was wont to indulge, sought, as much as in her lay, to mitigate the ill impression.