proposes the health of the "next bride and bridegroom." Alma Rosen's hand trembles slightly as it touches Lothar Eichhof's when they clink their glasses; and when later in the day, before he left her, he declared that a kiss was his right in pledge of their new relationship, and calmly availed himself of this right, he had no idea of how fast and loud her heart beat the while.
"She is a perfect child," he said, after they had risen from table, to Hugo Hohenstein, who had taken Frau von Wronsky to breakfast. "A perfect child, but a pretty little puss, and faute de mieux----" And he snapped his fingers, and then paused as his glance lighted upon his new sister-in-law, standing talking with Adela Hohenstein by one of the windows, her girlish figure draped in white satin and shrouded in her lace veil.
"À propos, Thea is quite dazzling," he said. "I never should have given her credit for so much dignity and self-possession."
Hohenstein put up his eye-glass, and bestowed a critical glance upon the bride.
"Yes, she has a good figure and rather fine features," he said, with the oracular air of a connoisseur. "Her face is an unwritten page as yet; but time will change all that, even although it may never show such a startling romance as may be read in the Wronsky's eyes."
Lothar was still gazing at his sister-in-law, and only half heard Hohenstein's words.
"Was the lady very entertaining at table?" he asked, rather absently.
"Why, either she is not in a good humour today, or she is playing a part; I cannot make out which," Hohenstein replied. "At all events, she is excessively interesting. Before her marriage there was some very piquant story about her; she has had experiences. I know nothing explicit, but that woman has been through an immense deal, you may be certain."
Thea left the room to put on her travelling-dress, and Bernhard, who until now had been constantly near her, went into an antechamber, whence he was instantly about to withdraw upon finding it occupied by Frau von Wronsky, who was seated in a negligent attitude on a divan, her head resting on her hand. She called him, however, by name, and involuntarily, although with an air of constraint, he paused on the threshold.
"I should like to speak with you for a moment," she said, in a low, hurried tone. "You ought at least to know that I had resolved not to inflict my presence upon you to-day; that I have done so is owing entirely to your father, who paid us a visit the day before yesterday and was so pertinacious in his request that we should be present to-day that----"