She read it, blushed scarlet, grew confused, and raised her eyelashes with a helpless look on her face. He did not offer to shake hands with her, having become confused himself, and left the house.
III.
Dzyalin, the count’s estate was half an hour’s walk from the heart of the Gnesen. On Saturdays and summer evenings the gates were open and the town people were allowed to promenade through the wooded paths and the tree-lined winding alleys. The grounds were entered through a narrow portal and after passing the spacious courtyard, around which were located several imposing homes of the manager and his assistants, there was a tall iron gate which led to two broad shaded lanes. The one to the right led to the count’s castle and the one turning left was open to the public. The latter extended over more than a mile, rows of Lombardy poplars on either side, like sentinels on guard, and came to a sudden halt at the dam, which held the streams in check for the water mill. For farther left was a narrow river, beyond which spread the count’s vegetable gardens and grain fields.
Albert was at the designated spot ahead of time, and when he spied her in the distance he ran toward her with an extended hand but she overlooked it and remained standing stock still, pale, shy, trembling. Her cheeks looked almost bloodless for a moment and her eyes, which he had thought were jet black, were of a sapphire blue and devoid of all animation. A dark cashmere shawl, which had covered her head, had slipped to her shoulders, and the tassels at the ends were gathered in her clasped hands, with an expression of stunned fright on her face.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” he mumbled.
She drew a long breath, her hands clinching the tassels in her hands, and a film of mist appeared in her dark-blue eyes.
“Some one might see me,” she muttered in a fretful voice and a frown of agony appeared on her countenance.
They moved back of the row of poplars, where the ground sloped toward the river, screened by shrubs and bushy willows.
He soon made her forget her fears. He began to ask her questions about the people in Gnesen, about herself, but she would not talk about herself. She wanted him to tell her about Berlin, of which she had heard so much. She sighed. She was tired of Gnesen and the people here. There was nothing new in Gnesen. The same gloom day after day, week after week, year after year. Ah, for a glimpse of Berlin!
He made attempts to console her. Her naiveté, her ignorance of the world, her simplicity, her artlessness, her evident truthfulness charmed him. She had never been outside the little town, and she was in her eighteenth year. She entertained strange notions of what a large city was like, and wished she could go to one—she would go anywhere to escape the tedium of Gnesen.