Conrad's face again assumed a meditative expression, which, certainly, was not proper to it.
"I don't know, sir; it strikes me that the thing is by no means so settled. Berkow was far from being as calm as he tried to appear, and it was the same with Eugénie. There was no indifference in that violent start of his when you declared that she insisted on an immediate separation, and in Eugénie's face, when she left us, there was still less. A very odd idea has occurred to me in consequence!"
The Baron smiled with great superiority.
"You are quite a child still in some things. Con, in spite of your epaulets and your twenty years. Do you imagine that the determination which, as it now appears, they have both long since come to, could have arisen without previous quarrels and unpleasantness? Eugénie has suffered much from these scenes; perhaps Berkow may have suffered also. What you so sagely remarked was the reverberation of storms gone by, nothing more. Thank God, there is plain sailing between us now, and the storms are over for good and all."
"Or perhaps they are only just beginning!" said Conrad to himself under his breath, as he left the room with his father.
CHAPTER XIX.
Evening had come, and throughout the house there was a feeling of disquiet and much busy movement. Baron Windeg had had another and a longer interview with his daughter in the afternoon, and directly afterwards the lady's maid had received orders to pack up her mistress's wardrobe. Herr Berkow had previously informed the servants that his wife would leave in the morning with her father for a stay of several weeks in the capital, and had desired that the necessary preparations should be made.
Of course, this piece of news at once made the round of all the officials' dwellings, and there, as at home, excited more uneasiness than surprise. It was clear as day that the master was only sending away her ladyship because he was convinced there would soon be "a row" on the works. He wished to know that she was in safety, and had probably himself sent for her father to fetch her away. Windeg was right. The pretext was so plausible, it occurred to nobody to doubt it.
At first, the strangely cold relations between the young married pair had been much discussed and commented on; but that had gradually ceased. It was known that the marriage had not been one of inclination, but as no quarrels or violent scenes were ever heard of--and, had there been any such, they could hardly have escaped the servants' notice--as Berkow was always politeness itself in his behaviour to his wife, and Eugénie tranquillity itself in her manner towards him, it was concluded that they must have become accustomed to and satisfied with each other: the usual result of these marriages of convenience. Their peculiar way of life seemed to be only what was practised in the great world.
In the higher circles of the capital it was usual to live thus apart and on a politely cool footing, and it could therefore be a matter of no surprise that the Baroness Windeg and the son of Berkow the millionaire should adopt the same course. That this journey, which had been preceded by no quarrel, should contain in it the germs of a final separation, was suspected by no one, and it struck no one as strange that the family did not spend that evening in company as usual.