He drew his daughter to him, and now in the moment of separation all the tenderness which this grave, melancholy man cherished in his heart towards his only child, broke forth. He clasped her to him with profound and painful emotion. But the Princess waited in vain for her son to approach her. He stood with a dark frown on his overcast face, looking down at the ground, and biting his lips until they bled.
"Well, Leo," remonstrated his mother, at last, "will you not say good-bye to me?"
The words startled him from his brooding. "Not now, mother. I will follow my uncle later. He will not want me at first; I shall stay here a few days longer."
"Leo!" cried the Count angrily, while Wanda, raising herself from his arms, looked up in indignant surprise. These marks of reprobation only served, however, to harden the young Prince in his rebellion.
"I shall stay," he persisted. "Two or three days cannot possibly make any difference. I will take Wanda back to Rakowicz before I leave, and make myself sure that she will remain there; above all, I will wait for Waldemar's return, and have the matter cleared up in the shortest way. I will challenge him with his feelings towards my affianced wife. I will ..."
"Prince Leo Baratowski will do what duty bids him, and nothing else," interrupted the Princess, her cold clear voice ringing out in sharpest contrast to her son's wild agitated tones. "He will follow his uncle, as has been agreed, and will never stir one minute from his side."
"I cannot," cried Leo, impetuously. "I cannot leave with this suspicion at my heart. You have promised me Wanda's hand, and yet I have never been able to assert my right to it. She herself has always sided coldly and inexorably with you. She has always wished to be the prize which I must fight for and win in the struggle we are now entering on. But now I demand that she shall be publicly and solemnly betrothed to me beforehand, here in Waldemar's presence, before his eyes. Then I will go; but until this is done, I will not stir from the Castle. Waldemar has proclaimed himself master and lawgiver here in such a surprising manner--no one ever expected it of him--he may just as suddenly transform himself into an ardent adorer."
"No, Leo," said Wanda, with angry disdain; "but at the beginning of a struggle your brother would not refuse to follow where duty leads, even though it should cost him his love and his happiness."
They were the most unfortunate words she could have spoken; they robbed the young Prince of all self-control. He laughed out bitterly.
"Oh, his risk would be small; but it might easily cost me both if I were to go away and leave you to your unbounded admiration of him and his sense of duty. Uncle, I ask permission to put off my journey, only for three days, and if you refuse me, I shall take it. I know that nothing decisive will be done at the first, and I shall be there in time enough for all the preparatory movements."