Doctor Fabian seemed fully to understand the family relations, and to regard the approaching interview with an alarm quite equal to that of Herr Witold; but it arose from entirely different reasons. "Heaven help us!" said he, anxiously. "If Waldemar, with his uncultivated manners, goes to C---- and appears before the princess, what will she think of him?"
"She will think that he resembles his father and not her," was the emphatic answer. "And as soon as she sees Waldemar, it will become clear to her that she can make him no pliable tool for her intrigues; for I will wager my head that she has some intrigue on hand. Either the princely purse is empty--I believe it has never been any too full--or a little government conspiracy is on the tapis, and Villica, which lies close to the Polish boundary, is a very convenient place. Heaven only knows what she wants of my boy, but I will find out her plans and open his eyes in season."
"But, Herr Witold," remonstrated the doctor, "why widen this unfortunate breach in your family just now, when the mother offers her hand in reconciliation? Would it not be better to make peace at last?"
"You do not understand the situation," replied the guardian, with a bitterness very unusual to him. "No peace can be made with this woman without entire submission to her authority; and because my deceased relative would not yield up his will to hers, he had continual discord in his house. But I do not hold him guiltless; he had serious faults, and made his wife's life very wretched; but this Princess Maryna was no wife for him. Another and a different woman might perhaps have won unbounded influence over him, and have wrought a change in his whole character; but affection alone could have such power, and this woman has never cared for any one but herself. She is by nature heartless and arrogant. Well, she atoned for the supposed humiliation of her first marriage by a second union to a Polish prince, but the one supreme grievance of her life has been her expulsion from Villica, which would have been her widow's dower if Nordeck had not cut her off in his will. He left his entire fortune to Waldemar, and we have educated the lad in such a way that he will not be likely to make a fool of himself."
"We!" cried the doctor, in consternation. "Herr Witold, I have honestly tried to do my duty to my pupil, but I have not been able to effect the least improvement in his manners. If I had--" He stopped short.
"They would have been different," added Witold, laughing. "Well, you need have no twinges of conscience about that. The lad suits me perfectly just as he is now. If you prefer to have it so, say that I have educated him; I shall be delighted if he does not prove a suitable instrument for his mother's intriguing plans, and if my training and her Parisian culture are at loggerheads to-morrow, it will delight me still more. This, at least, will be a revenge for that malicious letter."
With these words, Herr Witold left the room. The doctor picked up the letter from the floor, folded it carefully, and murmured, with a deep sigh,--
"After all, it will be said that a certain Doctor Fabian educated the young heir. O, righteous heaven!"