"It is not mere childish nonsense," she replied, with the utmost decision. "George Winterfeld loves me."
The Baron's eye flashed fire. He rose quickly, and folded his arms on his breast, as though to compel himself to be calm; but his voice was low and menacing as he answered her:
"Oh, oh! he has told you this already? Last night, perhaps, during your waltz?"
"He told me long ago, in Switzerland, that he loved me."
Raven laughed out loud--a short, harsh laugh.
"I suspected it, I vow," he said, with bitter sarcasm. "So you two were acting through a romance under your mother's eyes, she having no faintest notion of it the while. Well, it is what one might expect from her. But it is less easy to deceive me. If you intended that, you should have guarded your looks better; they were far too eloquent yesterday evening. I can make many excuses for you, Gabrielle, on account of your youth and inexperience--a few sentimental phrases suffice to turn the head of a girl of seventeen; but this romantic trifling is too dangerous for me to permit it to go on longer. I shall remind Assessor Winterfeld of the barriers which separate him from the Baroness Harder--from my niece, and that in a way which will impress itself on his memory. Henceforward you will neither see nor speak to him. I forbid this folly, once for all."
He strove in vain to preserve his sarcastic tone; the terrible irritation which lay behind would break through at times. Gabrielle, indeed, did not remark this; she heard only the scornful derision of his words. The girl was prepared for reproaches, for an outbreak of fierce anger on the part of her guardian, for she knew how his pride would revolt against such a union; but, instead of wrathfully upbraiding her, he treated George and herself as a pair of naughty children, who must be duly punished for the fault they had committed. He spoke in the most contemptuous tone of 'trifling' and of 'sentimental phrases,' and thought that, by launching his edict, he could at one stroke destroy the happiness of two grown-up persons. This was too much. The young lady now rose in her turn, vibrating with indignation.
"You cannot do that, Uncle Arno," she said vehemently. "George has a claim on me which he will certainly vindicate. He has my word--my promise. I am betrothed to him."
She had made her confession boldly, unhesitatingly; and now she paused, waiting for the coming storm, but none came. Raven replied not a word. A grey pallor overspread his face, and his hand grasped convulsively the back of a great arm-chair that was near him, while he gazed with a strange, fixed look at Gabrielle.
She stood before him silent and confused. It was not exactly fear which possessed her, but rather a secret, inexplicable dread growing up within her beneath that gaze, a vague presentiment of coming evil, against which she struggled in vain.