"I can only express my thanks to the ladies, that they are kind enough to dispose of my time so much better than I could possibly have done myself," replied Stein, with a polite bow.
"That means, the wise man yields to inevitable fate," said Melitta, laughing. "And here comes the baron with Malte, and we can go in to dinner, a step which I am perfectly ready to take."
The dinner was set on the terrace, which had been added to the château on the side towards the garden, and which ran the whole length of the building. A tent protected the guests against the sun. The evening was beautiful. The sun was near setting. Rosy lights were playing in the tops of the lofty beech-trees which surrounded the well-shaded lawn. Swallows flew about, dashing to and fro through the clear atmosphere. A peacock came, attracted by the well-known clattering of plates, and took his place at the foot of the terrace, where he picked up the bread-crumbs which the baron threw him over the stone balustrade.
The conversation was much more lively than usual. The baroness could make a very agreeable hostess when she chose, and was by no means so entirely free from vanity that she should have remained inactive when she feared to be neglected for the sake of Melitta. Melitta herself was in her most amiable humor; she jested and laughed, she teased and was teased, unconcerned and innocent, like a mere child. Oswald did not dream, while abandoning himself willingly to the charm of Melitta's attractions, that his presence contributed largely to the greater cheerfulness. And yet this was exactly the case. There are few women who are perfectly indifferent to the impression which they produce on the company in which they are, and Melitta was certainly not one of those few. Her disposition was rather to be easily excited, and to be bribed by pleasing forms and clever words, in a manner which is utterly unintelligible to colder natures. Oswald was perhaps not exactly what the world calls a handsome man; but yet nature had not neglected him, and the good society in which he had always moved had added to the innate gracefulness of his manners. All this surprised Melitta the more agreeably, as she had not expected it in a man of such humble pretensions. Oswald appeared to her every moment of greater importance; she began to fear that her brusque invitation had been out of place, and yet she was charmed with the idea of seeing the young man at her own house. She felt flattered when she met more than once, Oswald's admiring glance across the table; and yet she always cast down her long silky eyelashes, searching and eloquent as her eyes generally were.
After dinner the baroness proposed a game of graces, as Melitta declared that she could remain a little longer. Bruno ran off to bring the hoops, which were neither out of place nor out of repair,--a fact which spoke volumes for the scrupulous order that reigned at the château. Soon the company was standing about on the lawn in a wide circle, and the graces flew around merrily through the soft, warm evening air. All, even the baron, showed more or less skill in the game, except Malte, who could never catch the hoop when it did not fall straight upon his stick. Melitta, on the other hand, never failed to avail herself of his missing, for the purpose of sending her hoop, with lightning speed, out of the regular order, at the head of some one of the other players, and Oswald noticed that he was more frequently distinguished in this way than any of the others.
In the mean time it had become nearly dark; the old baron had noticed a few dew-drops on the grass, and the evening dew was, in his opinion, sheer poison for Malte, who had suffered for some time of diphtheria when a child. He proposed, therefore, that they should all go in. Melitta found that it was high time for her to return, and begged that her groom might be ordered to saddle the horses. Bruno had hurried away with the order; the baroness and mademoiselle had gone into the sitting-room; the baron was busy wrapping a thick shawl around Malte's throat to prevent his taking cold, and thus Oswald and Melitta found themselves alone for the first time since their short conversation before. Melitta had broken a rose from a bush which grew at the feet of the stone Flora, and stood looking thoughtfully at the brilliant flower.
"I must beg your pardon," she said suddenly, in a low, quick voice, but without raising her eyes, "that I committed the blunder of asking you sans façon to pay me a visit which may give you some trouble."
"Not at all; I repeat quite sincerely now, what I before said from common politeness, that I shall be very happy indeed to be of some service to you."
"Then you will come to-morrow?"
"At your service."