Without a glance to right or left he walked quickly forward, taking aimlessly now this and now that path, without noticing that he repeatedly returned to the same spot. It seemed as if he wished with this stormy walk to calm an inner unrest; he had really gone out to be alone in the free, open air.
The young lord tried to persuade himself that it was only the meeting again with the friend of his youth that had taken him so completely out of his composure. He had not heard anything of Hartmut for fully ten years--did not even dare to mention him at home, and now he suddenly saw the lost one again, with the halo of a growing poetical glory around his head. Deeply and wonderfully changed in appearance and manner, in spite of all he was still the Hartmut with whom he had played his boyish games so often. He should have recognized him at the first glance without having been prepared for the meeting.
Wallmoden, on the contrary, seemed to be disagreeably surprised at yesterday's success. He had hardly spoken during the drive home; his wife as little. She had stated in the carriage that the hot air of the theatre had given her an intolerable headache, and retired immediately upon their arrival home. The Ambassador followed her example, and when he gave his hand to his nephew, who wished him good-night, he said curtly: "Our understanding remains the same, Willibald. You are to keep silence toward everybody, whoever it be. Look out that you do not betray yourself, for the name Rojanow will be in everybody's mouth during the next few days. He has had luck again this time--like all adventurers."
Willibald had accepted the remark silently, but he still felt that it was something else which gave the author of Arivana this success.
Under other circumstances he would have considered this work as something unheard of--incomprehensible--without understanding it, but, strange to say, the understanding for it had dawned upon him yesterday.
One could fall in love without the solemn approval of the respected parents, guardians and relations; it happened not only in India, but it happened here sometimes, too. One could also incautiously and hastily burden oneself with a vow and break it--but what then?
Yes, then came the doom which Hartmut had pictured so horribly and yet so fascinatingly. Willy was transporting in earnest the highly romantic teachings of Arivana into Burgsdorf affairs, and the doom suddenly assumed the features of Frau von Eschenhagen, who, in her wrath, was surely worse than an angry caste of priests.
The young lord heaved a deep sigh. He thought of the second act of the play, when, from the circle of Hindoo girls who marched to the place of sacrifice, a delicate figure had stepped forth, inexpressibly charming in the white, flowing garments, and the wreath of flowers in her curls. His eyes had hung riveted upon her, who appeared but twice or thrice upon the stage, but after that her song had sounded from the banks of the moonlit river. It was the same clear, sweet voice which had enchanted the listener at Waldhofen, and now the old mischief, which he had struggled down and thought forgotten, was back again. It stood before him with giant size, and the worst of it was that he did not even consider it longer as a mischief.
The tireless walker now came for the third time to a small temple, open in front, and in which stood a statue, while a bench in the background invited one to rest.
Willibald entered this time and sat down, less from a desire to rest than to be able to follow his thoughts undisturbed.