"Certainly."
Miss Helen probably thought the very clever conversation had lasted quite long enough, and as they happened to have come to a place where a narrow flight of steps led down from the wall into the garden, she availed herself of this opportunity to end the scene in her own interest and that of her monosyllabic companion.
"Have you any idea what time it is?"
"Half-past six."
"Already? Then I must make haste to get back to the house before mamma finds out that I am not there."
Miss Helen nodded carelessly with her head, stepped down the steep steps, and went slowly between the flower-beds towards the house.
"The happy know no hour," said Oswald to himself, following the slender youthful figure with his eyes; "my meteorological observations have evidently not made her happy, and she was less anxious to get back to the house than to get away from me. At all events, she seems to have time enough to gather a pretty bouquet. It is no doubt intended for me. I have evidently made a conquest. How she looked at me with her, wonderful eyes, half pitying, half contemptuous, as if she meant to say: I do you a great favor if I leave you alone with your bashfulness! She is proud, says Bruno, but how well that pride becomes her! How can a girl with such a face, such eyes, and such hair, be anything else but proud? It is her atmosphere, in which alone she can live, as the eagle in the highest regions of the air. The eagle is proud, too, and no one blames him for it.... How very beautiful she is! A superb beauty that need not be afraid of broad daylight, and that seems to be the greater the more costly the frame is in which it is set. A weird kind of beauty, too, that enchains us, and transfixes us as that of the deadly beautiful Medusa. Ah! now I know it! It is the very face of the Grenwitz family, of which Albert spoke--divine, and yet not without its trace of the Evil One! Feature by feature! it is Harald's face translated into the other sex; the same demoniac eyes, the same intoxicating feature around the full, almost exuberant lips, the same strength in the luxuriant bluish black hair which curls high up on the broad, firm forehead!--Gracious mamma! You are sorely mistaken if you fancy that forehead will easily bow to your decrees! Excellent Baron Felix, you will have to do great credit to your name as the lucky one, if you wish to succeed here! The morning is really delightful, and one would really be tempted to consider bad weather a fairy tale when one sees the skies so deep blue."
Oswald had of late been so exclusively occupied with his own affairs that he now felt the want, for a change, to interest himself in the affairs of others. The baroness was surprised at the sympathy with which he entered upon her ideas at table, and during a long conversation after dinner. He actually discussed with her several questions which she raised about his instruction: Would it not be expedient during the hot terms to commence the lessons at seven instead of eight? Might not the afternoon lessons be altogether omitted? Did he think the books which Helen had so far used for her studies of History and Literature still suitable for her? Would two lessons a week suffice for her? and did he think the morning or the evening better for the purpose?
The old baron also was pleasantly surprised when Oswald proved an attentive listener to the long history of his complaints. Oswald had always treated him with great courtesy, and he had looked upon him as a good and amiable young man, in spite of the decided opposition of Anna Maria and the somewhat doubtful assent of the Reverend Mr. Jager. He was glad, therefore, to be able to express this opinion today in harmony with Anna Maria. The journey seemed in fact to have produced a most happy influence on the baroness. Mademoiselle Marguerite, who certainly had the means of forming an opinion on that subject, told Albert: "She is changed totalement, she me has not scolded a single time the whole day;" whereupon the ingenuous Albert said: "Yes; I think myself the old dragon is quite enjoyable to-day." In a word, such peace and harmony reigned to-day at Castle Grenwitz as had not been known there for many a year. Everybody seemed to have forgotten his reasons for being discontented with the others. This might indeed be the result of different causes in each case, but as the effect was very pleasing to all, they took for good coin what everybody offered as such--of course reserving the right to pay him back in the same coin.
Oswald had not forgotten his meeting with Miss Helen in the morning, and, fully conscious of the impression he had then produced on the beautiful, proud young lady, he was pleased to find more than one opportunity during the day to make his natural advantages more prominent. When they asked him at table to tell what had happened to him during the absence of the family, he described his solitary life in the fishermen's village, assuming a half-amusing, half-sentimental part in the little drama, and taking good care to leave the romantic mystery undisturbed, in which he concealed his stay there. Good Mother Carsten became an heroic dame; her red-haired daughters, Stine and Line, were changed into lovely Undines, and the old half-idiotic Father Stephen into a wise Merlin. The chalk cliffs of the coast rose to immeasurable heights, and the breakers thundered amid the rocks with Ossianic majesty. The company, although feeling the exaggeration, listened nevertheless with breathless interest, and Oswald felt, as the fairest reward for his fantastic improvisation, that Helen's large brilliant eyes were immovably fixed upon him during his recitals, half in wonder and half in doubt.