"There will be a most romantic scene," Albert concluded her sentence. "No, that is just what he will not do. You little know the engineer-in-chief if you credit him with such sensibility. He is not the man to withdraw from a connection that insures him the future possession of millions, and he will soon console himself for lack of affection in his wife. And what do you suppose Nordheim will say to your romance?"
"The president?" Molly asked, dejectedly. In the contemplation of her scheme in which she played the part of beneficent fairy, joining the hands of the lovers with all the emotion befitting the occasion, she had quite forgotten that Alice had a father whose word might be decisive in this matter.
"Yes, President Nordheim, who brought about this betrothal, and who will hardly consent to dissolve it, and to bestow his daughter's hand upon a young country doctor, who, with all his courage and capacity, has nothing to give in return. No, Molly, the affair is perfectly hopeless, and Benno is quite right to resign all hope. Even if Alice really loves him, she has promised her hand to Wolfgang, and neither he nor her father will release her. There is no help for it, they must both submit."
He might have gone on thus forever without convincing his wife. She knew what her own obstinacy had effected in uniting her with her lover, and she would not see why Alice could not persist in the same manner. She listened, indeed, attentively, and then cut short any further remarks from her husband by declaring, dictatorially,--
"You do not understand it at all, Albert! They love each other. Then they ought to marry; and marry they shall!"
What could Gersdorf say to refute such logic as this?
Meanwhile, Alice Nordheim was in her father's study, which she rarely entered, and which she must have sought now for some important purpose, for she looked pale and agitated, and as she stood leaning against the window-frame, seemed to be undergoing an inward struggle; yet there was nothing in prospect save an interview between the father and daughter. There was, to be sure, nothing of confidence or intimacy in the relation existing between them. Nordheim, who had surrounded his daughter with all the luxury and splendour that wealth could procure, took, in fact, very little interest in her, as Alice had always felt, but in her docile compliance with whatever her father desired, there had never been any collision between them.
For the first time this was otherwise; she was about to go to her father with a confession, which must, she knew, provoke his wrath, and she trembled at the thought, although her resolution never wavered.
All at once the president's step was heard in the next room, and his voice said, "Herr Waltenberg's secretary? Certainly. Show him in!"
Alice stood hesitating for a moment; her father, who did not suspect her presence here, was not alone, and, agitated as she was, she could not confront a stranger. Probably the man brought some message from Waltenberg, and his business would shortly be despatched. The young girl, therefore, slipped into her father's bedroom, which adjoined his office, and the door of which remained ajar. Nordheim immediately entered the room she had left, and was shortly joined there by his visitor.