Oswald was determined not to renew the childish and yet dangerous play with the impassioned girl. He wished and hoped she would have seen her folly. He was rather pleased, therefore, when Miss Emily answered the few indifferent words which he addressed to her with apparent unconcern, and then joined a group of girls who surrounded Helen, and admired the new-fashioned cut of a dress which she wore for the first time to-day.
His meeting with Baron Cloten also was less uncomfortable than he had anticipated from his manner when they saw each other at Baron Oldenburg's house. The young nobleman pretended to be very glad to see him again; he inquired eagerly after Oldenburg, spoke of their pistol-shooting at Barnewitz, and asked if Oswald would now give him satisfaction.
Oswald was rather curious to see the meeting between Cloten and Barnewitz. To his great surprise, however, there seemed to be an excellent understanding between the two gentlemen; Oldenburg had evidently proved an excellent diplomat in this affair. The fact was, he had persuaded both that each one was eager to drink the blood of the other, and thus induced the two men to listen to his suggestions for an amicable arrangement, as they found, both of them, life far too pleasant to risk it without very grave provocation. He had represented Cloten's little trifling with Hortense as mere child's play to Barnewitz, and vowed that he was persuaded Cloten had never stood in any other relation to the good lady than many other acquaintances, he himself for instance,--a wretched ambiguity, which the somewhat simple husband, however, gratefully accepted as an evidence of his wife's innocence. The young rustic Don Giovanni, on the other hand, he had advised to be once or twice very rude, and even impertinent to Hortense, in her husband's presence, and, above all, to pick out some pretty girl among his friends, and to court her publicly. Cloten was very glad to get off so cheap; he had followed Oldenburg's advice to the letter, and begun, on the spot, to pay the most devoted attentions to Emily von Breesen. So far, however, he had not been successful in his efforts. Far from it. The thoughtless girl had overwhelmed him with pitiless scorn and scoffing; his assurances of love and devotion were met with ironical remarks, and his chivalrous services were accepted with an indifference which would have driven him to despair if he had been in earnest. And, as it happens in such things, he had gradually come to be in earnest; Miss Emily was by no means one of those young ladies whom one could with impunity see and serve almost daily. She was so charming even in her wanton recklessness, so lovely even in her insolence, that the unlucky bird-catcher caught himself, from day to day, more and more in his own net, and would now have given almost anything for a single kind word from the lips he adored. What was therefore his delight when Miss Emily, whom he hardly dared to approach, to-day met him with the greatest friendliness, chose him as her companion during the promenade they made through the garden, sent him to gather flowers for her, and to bring her a handkerchief she had forgotten at the house, and, in a word, seemed to do everything to make amends in an hour for all the insults of the last weeks!
Cloten was overwhelmed with happiness; his watery blue eyes beamed with delight; he twisted his little moustache unceasingly, and smiled with stupid vanity whenever some one whispered to him: "Well, Cloten, all right, eh?" or, "That's right, Cloten, don't be afraid."
Oswald did not know what to make of the comedy. At first he thought Emily only wanted to show him that she did not want admirers, for he could not believe that so clever a girl, who, with all her faults and foibles, was very lovely and exceedingly pretty, should take a fancy to such a stupid man as Cloten. When evening came the company gradually retired into the rooms adjoining the lawn, but Emily and Cloten remained almost alone outside, and Oswald had at last to fall in with the unanimous opinion of the company, that the engagement between Baron Cloten and Miss Emily could no longer be doubted. He was sorry for the girl, who could throw herself away in this manner; but then he thought again: It was not worth while to reproach yourself so much about so heartless a girl! They are, after all, in all probability, quite worthy of one another. I wonder if Cloten is not ashamed to play such a farce before the eyes of the woman he has loved?
He turned to Hortense, who was standing alone in the embrasure of one of the windows. The pretty blonde seemed to-day to be pleased with this neglect on the part of the gentlemen, although it was most extraordinary, as she generally was one of the best-attended ladies.
"Are you not going to dance to-night, baroness?" asked Oswald.
"Are they going to dance?" she replied, as if awaking from a dream.
"Oh, certainly. They are just carrying the piano into the large salon. Mr. Timm has offered to play. May I have the honor of the first dance, if I am not too late?"
"Too late? Oh, no! Those times are gone by when I used to be engaged for weeks ahead. I leave that to the younger ones now."