"If my late uncle and aunt could see us now, they would observe with intense satisfaction how their daughter holds the incorrigible Hugo by the head--he who will usually obey no other reins--how she will not permit him to go even one step beyond those limits which she finds it good to draw. No, I am not angry with you, Ella--cannot be so--only you must not make obedience too hard for me."
Both were still engaged in lively conversation, when Marchese Tortoni and Lord Elton also entered the verandah from the gallery.
"Look there," said the former, astonished, to his companion, "that is the reason why our Capitano's observations are so endlessly prolonged that we are obliged to look him up at last. It is indeed an extraordinary nature. An hour ago he forced our boat through storm and waves, and now he plays the agreeable to a young signora."
"Yes, an extraordinary man," agreed Lord Elton, who had taken such a blind fancy to Hugo, that he thought everything perfect in him.
The unbearable sultry air in the close rooms appeared to have driven the whole party out on to the verandah, as immediately after the two gentlemen Reinhold and Beatrice appeared also. If his wife were prepared for this encounter, he certainly was not, as he became pale as death, and made a movement as if to turn back; but at the same moment the boy's fair, curly head appeared from behind the young wife, and, as if transfixed, the father stood still. His glance directed openly to the child, he appeared to have forgotten all else around him.
"What a lovely child!" cried Beatrice, admiringly, as she stretched her arms out with perfect assurance; but now Ella started up! with a single movement she had withdrawn the boy from the intended caress, and pressed him firmly to herself.
"Excuse me, Signora," said she, coldly, "the child is shy with strangers, and not accustomed to such caresses."
Beatrice seemed somewhat offended at this repulse; however she saw nothing more in it than a mother's over-due anxiety. She shrugged her shoulders imperceptibly, and a scoffing side-glance fell upon the stranger, but it soon remained enchained by the latter's appearance, although recognition only took place on one side.
Before Ella's recollection, that evening stood forth in perfect distinctness when she, alone, without knowledge of her people, her veil drawn closely over her face, hastened to the theatre, in order to see the one who had so completely alienated her husband. She had seen Beatrice in all the brilliancy of her beauty and talent, intoxicated by the cheers and homage of the public, and she bore the impression ineffaceably away with her.
Beatrice, also, had only once seen Reinhold's wife, at the time when she first began to be interested in the young composer, and Ella did not then suspect anything of her evil influence. A short meeting of a few minutes sufficed for the Italian to perceive that this quiet, pale being, with downcast eyes, and that ridiculously matronly costume, could not possibly bind such a man to her, and this knowledge was extensive enough for her not to take any further notice of the young wife. At all events it was impossible for her to associate the colourless, half ridiculous, and half pitiful picture, which she carried in her recollection, in the remotest degree with this apparition, which stood so unapproachably proudly there, which held its fair head so high and erect, and whose large blue eyes looked at her with an expression which Beatrice was unable to explain to herself. She only saw that the stranger was very haughty, but also very beautiful.