That Ellinor had undergone some grief—he knew not precisely what it was—he was perfectly aware, but her story was not one on which Mrs. Deroubigne cared to enlighten him fully. He could also see that she wore black or sombre dresses, with suites of jet ornaments, for Ellinor felt that to do so was at least all that she might indulge in, as a proper tribute to the memory of one who had loved her well.
The sisters were to have been photographed in their sixteenth century ball costumes for the delectation of Colville; but this frivolity they abandoned after hearing of Robert Wodrow's catastrophe.
Ellinor often recalled the night of that brilliant festivity, when she had waltzed and promenaded to and fro as one in a dream of delight, and spoke in a hushed tone as if she feared to waken from it to a real and commonplace life, for never before had she been in so gay and glittering a paradise; but now that was all over—gone like a dissolving view, and she could but think of the poor heart that had loved her so well and so fondly now lying cold and stiff in the waters of the Cabul river.
Mrs. Deroubigne knew of Robert Wodrow only by name. Thus her natural equanimity on the subject of his fate, combined with her social qualities and equally natural brightness, helped much to calm, even to soothe, the equally natural grief, and also perhaps the remorse of Ellinor, who, of course, became in time composed and consoled over the inevitable, though she was still too terrified or too much pained to write to his parents—a task which she relegated to Mary.
And in her quiet and subdued grief, most generous, unvaryingly kind and sympathetic was young Rolandsburg, though he knew not quite the cause from which it sprang; and charmed by her sadness, softness, and beauty, finding that the elder sister was lost to him, it seemed to Mrs. Deroubigne that he was already turning his attention to the younger.
Ellinor had—as she said to Mary—wept her eyes out for poor Bob Wodrow; and thus, after a time, the elasticity of her volatile nature began to reassert itself, to the delight of the baron.
Nature, we are told, abhors a vacuum; so did the heart of the handsome young Uhlan; hence he adopted a new rôle in his bearing to Ellinor, all the more easily and all the more readily that he had not committed himself with Mary.
Blooming as the German girls are, Ellinor's softer beauty was a new experience to him; she was like a tea-rose, a sea-shell, a wonderfully delicate and tinted bit of feminine nature, and as before, he first made Mrs. Deroubigne his confidant.
'Ah, madame!' said he, clasping his hands melodramatically, while drooping his head on one side till it nearly touched his gilt shoulderstrap, 'I suppose she could not understand anyone dying of love—of love of her?'
'I think not,' replied Mrs. Deroubigne, laughing excessively at this leading remark when remembering that he had been in the mood of 'dying for love' of Mary but some weeks before.