Gerlinda started at the sound of that voice; she instantly recognized its possessor. "Herr von Wehlau Wehlenberg."
Hans was already at her side. He had had no suspicion of her presence here, or, indeed, in the city; his duties as manager had kept him behind the scenes, and when he entered the drawing-room Gerlinda had already left it. Their meeting was a surprise to both, and certainly not an unpleasant one, as was evident from the young man's sparkling eyes and the little châtelaine's blushing cheeks.
"I fancied you far away in your mountain home," said Hans, taking a seat beside her. "How is your father?"
"Poor papa has been very far from well this winter," replied Gerlinda; "but as spring approached he grew better, so that I could leave him without anxiety."
"And Muckerl? How is Muckerl?"
The account of Muckerl's health was very satisfactory: she was as gay and hearty as she had been in the autumn; and as her young mistress talked of her she half forgot her timidity; she was so glad to tell of her home, and Hans did not interrupt her, but kept his eyes attentively fixed upon her face.
He had just seen the Countess Hertha in all the pride of triumphant beauty, and his artist eye had revelled in the sight. Here he saw only a delicate, child-like creature, who could not possibly be compared with that other, and whose soft brown eyes gazed up into his own half shyly, half confidingly. Nevertheless, little Dornröschen looked to him unutterably lovely to-night in her ball-dress of some airy, pale pink material, relieved by bunches of wild roses and floating cloud-like about the graceful figure. There was in her air and carriage something of the dewy freshness of a rose-bud just opening to the light.
"And how are you pleased here?" Hans asked, when the young girl paused. "Is there not something intoxicating, bewildering, in the life of a great city for one who mingles in it for the first time?"
Gerlinda shook her head and looked down. "I do not like it," she declared. "I would rather be at home with papa and my Muckerl. I feel so lonely and forsaken among all these strange people; they do not understand me, and I do not understand them."
"Oh, you will soon learn to understand them," Hans said, consolingly.