He was a prime favourite with the Countess from his general bonhommie of manner; and with Ernestine—ah! well, with Ernestine—he speedily became more of a favourite than the girl would have dared to acknowledge even to herself.
Society at Frankenburg was narrow and monotonous; most of the visitors who came, especially Baron Grünthal and the Justiz-rath, spoke only of politics, of Bismarck's plans, and the coming war, which did not interest the ladies, save in so far as the 95th Thuringians were concerned.
The days were devoted to rides and rambles amid the beautiful scenery around the old Schloss; the evenings to music, to singing, and frequently to dancing when the daughters of the Justiz-rath, or those of Baron Rhineberg, were present; and then our two 95th men were always in full uniform, à la Prussien; and the ladies were all unanimous that Charlie looked so handsome.
Those epaulettes! those epaulettes! To many a young English officer the pride and glory of wearing them was only secondary to the kiss of the first girl he loved; and where are they now?
So Charlie was proud of his epaulettes.
Heinrich had fairly won his lovely cousin—under 'false colours,' certainly; but, nevertheless, he had won her; perhaps, from the girl's peculiar temperament and pride, he might never have done so otherwise; but having so won her, he was compelled to be thankful, for with this odious French war on the tapis—a war which, but for his love, he would have hailed with genuine German ardour, and the 95th under 'orders of readiness' for the Rhine—marriage, as Herminia herself had said, was not to be thought of: so they had but to trust to time and wait.
The Countess being always busy about the management of her household, the Count having frequently to visit Aix about a lawsuit in one of the courts there, and Heinrich being usually much with his fiancée, threw Charlie and the young Grafine so much together that their hearts were hopelessly entangled; yet no word of love escaped the latter: he knew too well his lack of civil rank, and how many, or rather how few, kreutzers he had per diem as a Prussian lieutenant of infantry. He could but abandon himself to the witchery of her society, to dream of the joy of loving and being loved by her, and drift away on the tide, too well aware that the charm of such a life and the tender influences of such society could not last for ever.
With all their exalted and somewhat absurd ideas of their own family, their rank and antiquity, the household of the Count and Countess Von Frankenburg was a homely and kindly one; and, after his garrison life, there was, to Charlie, a wonderful charm in accompanying the cousins, Ernestine especially, to see the plough and carriage horses taken to water at a certain pond below the old Schloss, to feed the peacocks on the terrace, to throw corn to the hens, and watch them picking and pecking between the stones in the yard at the home farm.
And Ernestine was to him the Eve of this Eden!
But for the soft and gentle influences under which Charlie and his friend were at Frankenburg, they would certainly, like Prussian officers in general (though gaming is strictly forbidden in the army), have spent many an hour at the New Redoute, or Gaming House, in the Comphausbad-Strasse, where games of hazard, rouge-et-noir, roulette, and so forth, are played from morning till midnight.