She slightly inclined her head, and made no resistance when he took her hand and carried it to his lips. He went on, making a formal proposal for her hand in well-chosen, courteous terms, his melodious voice adding greatly to the eloquence of his words. All that was lacking was ardour; this was a suit for her hand, not a declaration of love.
Alice listened mutely in no surprise; it had long been an open secret to her that Elmhorst was her suitor, and she knew, too, that her father, discouraging as he had shown himself hitherto to the advances of other men, favoured Elmhorst's suit. He permitted the young man a freedom of intercourse in his house accorded to no other, and he had frequently expressly declared in his daughter's presence that Wolfgang Elmhorst had a brilliant career before him, worth in his eyes incalculably more than the scutcheons of men of rank, who were fain to rehabilitate the faded splendour of their names with a wife's money. Alice herself was too docile to have any will in the matter; it had been impressed upon her from earliest childhood that a well-bred young lady should marry in accordance with her parents' wishes, and she might have found nothing wanting in this extremely correct proposal had not Molly hit upon the idea of making her the guardian angel of a love-affair.
That scene in the window-recess had been so very different; those whispered tones, caressing, cajoling the wayward girl, whose whole heart seemed, nevertheless, devoted to the grave man so much her senior! With what tenderness he had treated her! This suitor respectfully requested the hand of the wealthy heiress,--her hand: there had been no mention whatever made of her heart.
Wolfgang finished and waited for a reply, then stooped and, looking in her face, said, reproachfully, "Alice, have you nothing to say to me?"
Alice saw clearly that something must be said, but she was unaccustomed to decide for herself, and she made answer, as was befitting a pupil of Frau von Lasberg's,--
"I must first speak with papa; his wishes----"
"I have just left him," Elmhorst interposed, "and I come with his permission and entire approval. May I tell him that my suit has found favour in your eyes? May I present my betrothed to him?"
Alice looked up with the same anxious inquiry in her eyes as before, and replied, softly, "You must have great consideration for me. I have been so ill and wretched all through my childhood that I am still oppressed with a sense of my weakness. You will suffer from it, and I am afraid----"
She broke off, but there was a childlike pathos in her tone, in the entreaty for forbearance from the young heiress, who, with her hand, bestowed a princely fortune. Wolfgang, perhaps, felt this, for for the first time there was something like ardour in his, manner as he declared,--
"Do not speak thus, Alice! I know that yours is a delicate temperament needing to be guarded and protected, and I will shield you from every rude contact in life. Trust me, confide your future to me, and I promise you by my----" "love" he was going to say, but his lips refused to utter the falsehood. The man was proud, he might coolly calculate, but he could not feign, and he completed his sentence more slowly,--"by my honour you never shall repent it!"