The first grey shafts of dawn that shone through the curtains of the girls' bedroom were beginning to take a rosy hue. The starlings had begun to chatter outside the window, and the young swallows trilled softly in the eaves. A mighty volume of sound, coming from the courtyard, seemed for a moment to fill the whole universe with noise and unrest, and then, with three single resounding strokes, to come to an end.
While Elly slept on, with rounded cheek and right ear resting in the hollow of her hand, in undisturbed slumber, Hertha lay with wide-open eyes, holding the counterpane between her teeth, and let the clang of the call-bell, which generally used to hunt her out of bed at once, die on her ear.
She had not been able to go to sleep again after the night's great event. Elly, when the first outbreak of joy was over, and after she had hazarded a few guesses as to what "presents" her brother had brought with him, had nestled her head down on the pillows peacefully, but Hertha had stayed in a sitting position, thinking and thinking without ceasing.
Often she had pictured to herself what this home-coming ought to be, and now it had happened quite differently from what she had expected. Everything always did happen differently from what you expected. So much wisdom her young life had taught her long ago. It dated from the day when her beautiful mother had been carried away from her in her shroud.
Papa was dead too, and Hertha thanked God for that often. There was a hardness in her nature which made her lips snap together at the thought of him. Now she was living amongst strangers, and felt herself at home. Her stepmother's people had become her own.
Her guardian, satisfied that she was being well brought up at Halewitz, contented himself with the management of her fortune, and didn't trouble himself about her. Mamma went her own way also, living a solitary life, seeing scarcely anybody but the poor people's children, whom she gathered about her every day. Then there was grandmamma. Dear old granny, she scolded a good bit. She scolded in the morning and scolded in the evening, but her scolding was sheer love, and after all you ended by doing what you liked. And, of course, that was nothing wrong. On the contrary, you had an object in life, for which you planned and worked and fought; which was your last thought at night before going to sleep and seeing dream-pictures; for the sake of which you tumbled half blind out of bed when the morning bell sounded its first hard clanging notes. The dairy, the poultry-yard, and the vegetable garden. These were her little kingdom, over which she had ruled for more than a year now, since grandmamma had abdicated and given over the management of them to her. She hadn't had to beg long, for it seemed only natural that the tired, lax fingers of the old lady should drop the reins and confide them to her strong brown paws. She was passionately devoted to riding, yet the superb Lithuanian mare, which had once belonged to Leo, was now left at peace in the stable. She could drive like a goddess, but for months she had not taken the four-in-hand ribbons between her fingers, for this reason more than anything else--that she had lost her pleasure in it.... Had she not plunged into a world of responsibility and cares? She looked back on her work with genuine pride. Now it was coming to an end, for he had come home.
She had laid the foundation of what he to-day would sit in judgment upon. She jumped out of bed and slipped into her petticoats. As she pulled back one of the curtains she saw the garden stretched out before her in the rosy glow of early morning. Night still brooded in the heart of the dark limes, but on the lawn lay the ruddy-gold reflection of early sunlight. She opened a window-lattice softly and breathed in the cool dewy morning air. A little shiver ran down her naked arms. She then placed herself before the looking-glass, which stood between the two windows, and was hung with flowered chintz and ornamented with a gilded pine-cone, and as she combed her long chestnut-brown, rather coarse hair, she subjected herself to a searching examination.
Never before had she been so unpleasantly alive to the thinness of her shoulders, and the undeveloped childish curves of her bosom, which were scarcely perceptible above the grey calico corset. Neither was the brown slender throat, on which her small quickly-turning, serpent-like head was posed so firmly and haughtily, at all to her taste to-day. Her arms were plentifully adorned with scars and scratches. They were without roundness, and the keen morning air had given them a goose-skin appearance.
"Simply hideous!" exclaimed Hertha. Then she hastily got into a scarlet blouse, which, in honour of the day, she fastened with a spray of sparkling garnets, and ended by thinking that she looked quite passable.
As she opened the door into the corridor, her heart began to beat fast. At any moment she might meet him.