“Had he perhaps picked up some foolish gossip or other?”
“About what? Will you be so good as to explain?”
“No, no, it is not worth the trouble,” replied Johan, who saw—thanks to Christian’s adroitness, or perhaps his carelessness—that their relative positions had become inverted, and that he himself, instead of asking questions, was being compelled to answer them. But still he could not help returning to a subject to which he had already referred.
“So, then,” he said, “it seems you have a scene so much like Stollborg as to be mistaken for it.”
“I had one that happened to look a little like Stollborg, yes, it is true; but I completed the resemblance on purpose.”
“Why?”
“Why, as I told you, by way of a compliment to the baron. I always make a point of representing some locality in the neighborhood wherever I may happen to be performing, so as to add to the attractiveness of my exhibitions. At my next stopping-place Stollborg will be changed again, and a new scene displayed. Did the baron think it poorly painted? No wonder, I had so very little time.”
While talking, Christian had amused himself by studying the disagreeable countenance of Johan. He was a man of about fifty, rather stout, vulgar in manner, and with features whose expression seemed at first good-natured and apathetic. But even the night before, Christian, as he handed him the letter of invitation found in M. Goefle’s pocket, had detected a sort of inquisitorial watchfulness, veiled by an assumed indifference, in his oblique glance. He was still more struck at present by these indications of a false, hypocritical character—a sort of caricature, as it seemed, of his master’s, the baron. Still, as Johan was nothing after all but an upper servant, without education or real finesse, Christian had no difficulty in playing a better comedy than he, and in effectually persuading him of the perfect innocence of his intentions. And in the meanwhile, for his own part, he obtained from the interview a quasi-certitude in regard to the story of Baroness Hilda. It seemed to him perfectly evident that a drama of some kind had been enacted at Stollborg, and that the baron had either been terrified or enraged at witnessing his performance; since it had represented in dramatic form, no matter with what intention, this triple conjunction: a prison, a victim, and a jailer.
[X.]
AS for Johan, he was assuredly the baron’s confidant, and perhaps had been one of the actors in this drama. He had tried to discover how far Christian Waldo, as a wandering story-teller, had become acquainted with the mystery; but Christian had adroitly insinuated that the servants of the chateau had been guilty of an indiscretion, and, for the present at least, had freed both himself and M. Goefle from any supposed participation in the matter.