It was easy to see that, in paying this visit, the young man was not acting spontaneously. His speech and manner were decidedly constrained. He seemed on the point of holding out his hand to his brother, but evidently could not quite prevail on himself to offer such a mark of amity. The little movement was not followed up.
Waldemar either did not, or would not, notice it. "You come by your mother's, desire?" he asked.
Leo reddened. He best knew what a struggle it had cost the Princess to extort compliance; how she had needed to employ the whole weight of her authority before he would consent to take this journey to Altenhof.
"Yes," he replied, somewhat tardily.
"I am sorry you should have had to take a step which must appear a humiliating one to you, Leo. I should certainly have spared it you, if I had known anything of the matter."
Leo looked up in surprise. The tone was as new to him as the consideration for his feelings, coming from this quarter.
"Mamma declared you had been insulted in our house," he began again--"insulted by me, and that, therefore, I must make the first advances towards a reconciliation. I feel myself now that she is right. You will believe me, Waldemar"--here his voice grew agitated--"you will believe me, that without such a feeling on my part I never should have come, never!"
"I believe you," was the short, but decided answer.
"Well, then, don't make it so hard for me to beg your pardon!" cried Leo, really stretching out his hand now. His brother declined it.
"I cannot accept your excuses. Neither you nor my mother are to blame for the insult I received in your house; moreover, it is already past and forgotten. Let us say no more about it."