"Mon cœur aux dames!" said Arthur, laying his delicate hand on his heart and bowing to his cousin.
The justizrath and his ladies said nothing, contenting themselves with exchanging significant looks to the effect that this was a family affair, and they have better avoid meddling in it.
Again ensued an embarrassing pause, which was broken, just as the situation seemed to have reached a climax, by William Kluckhuhn using his pocket-handkerchief with an energy altogether unbecoming in a decorous serving-man, even in moments of the most lively concern. Fräulein Duff, who had held her thin hands spasmodically clasped over her breast during the last words of the Commerzienrath with the pale resignation of one whose only remaining hope is in a better hereafter, broke out into a hysterical weeping, and Hermine suddenly rising and pressing her handkerchief to her cheeks and forehead, begged that the company would excuse her if her ill-humor had annoyed them, but that her headache was so violent that she must retire to her room.
I do not believe that any one of those present believed in this headache, but this of course did not hinder the two Eleonoras from springing from their chairs, and approaching the fair sufferer on either side, in the intent to compose a touching group. But Hermine had already seized the arm of her sobbing governess, and left the room with a painful smile upon her lips, which seemed intended for all the company except myself.
Except myself, over whom her look had passed as if my chair were empty, and the rest of the company seemed to entertain the same opinion. No one had a word or look for me, and I have never forgotten it of William Kluckhuhn that at this fateful moment he had the hardihood to step behind my chair, and in a suppressed tone to ask:
"Will the Herr Engineer take another glass of hock?"
I took the glass, and sipped it slowly with the air of a connoisseur, but I cannot say that I was able to do justice to the noble vintage. With all the trouble I took to appear quite at my ease, I was greatly pained and disconcerted. It is an extremely disagreeable thing to be singled out in this way by a young lady before an entire company.
Happily my strength was not tasked too hardly. The company rose from table and hastily separated; I went out into the grounds to think it all over in the soothing companionship of a cigar.
One thing was at once perfectly intelligible: the behavior of the company at this incident. They had let me drop at the instant they thought they saw that my game was lost. I knew well that Arthur's parents had never given up the hope that he would one day marry his cousin, and that their fulsome flatteries and Arthur's deceitful show of friendship were only meant to cloak their real aim, and perhaps to obtain some influence over me, as they probably feared that open enmity would only make their chance worse.
As for the justizrath and the two Eleonoras, they merely swam with the stream. They and the others--the conduct of all was explicable enough; but the commerzienrath? Did it not look as if he had intentionally provoked this scene at table, or at least offered the opportunity? He was usually adroit enough in giving another turn to the conversation when it did not please him. And if he really needed my assistance in effecting the sale, why did he mention the matter to Hermine now when all was still unsettled? Why, when he knew how averse she was from the project, mention me to her as its originator or at all events its chief promoter? Did he simply use me to screen himself? Such a manœuvre was exactly consistent with his character; he had a way of shifting burdens that were uncomfortable for him, to the shoulders of others. Or was this not all? Had the cunning old man tried his cuttle-fish stratagem again, and hidden himself in a cloud of assumed carelessness? He had noticed nothing, not he, of all that was going on around him, and in which he was so much concerned, and thus quite innocently, accidentally indeed, he placed "his young friend" in a quite untenable position towards his pretty passionate daughter.