Among the visitors was Baron Grünthal, the Oberdirector of the Consistory Court at Aix, a stout and florid, but rather handsome man, in the prime of life, with an ill-trimmed moustache hiding his whole mouth, and the inevitable red ribbon at his button-hole, who mentioned incidentally that he had seen the Grafine and Herr Pierrepont leaving the Dom Kirche by the great door, on either side of which are a she-wolf and a fir apple in bronze. Ernestine stooped over her bouquet to hide her conscious blush.
'You know, mamma,' said she, in a tone of explanation, though none was required, 'we drove into town, Herr Pierrepont and I, that I might show him the tomb and throne of Charlemagne.'
'Ah! yes,' said the Baron, making his champagne effervesce with a piece of biscuit; 'did you think the marble slabs of a good colour, Herr Pierrepont?'
'Beautiful!' said Charlie. 'The finest black I ever saw,' he desperately added, at a venture.
'Black?' said two or three voices. 'Why, they are of the purest white!'
'Exactly; that was what I meant to say. My German is not perfect, Herr Baron,' said Charlie.
And Ernestine, who had grown pale, now laughed and glanced furtively at her lover.
Dinner over, the Count and Baron retired to smoke and talk politics; but the latter, whose suspicions had been roused by the confused manner of Charlie, and the evident absorption of him and his fair companion when quitting the Dom Kirche, began to talk of something that might seriously affect their happiness.
Charlie and Ernestine betook themselves to the piano, where eye could look into eye, and finger touch finger occasionally in the duet, or soft whispers be exchanged amid a sonata of Beethoven; the Countess retired to doze in the boudoir, with her Spitz pug on her knee; while Herminia and her betrothed found sufficient attraction in each other; so the evening of this eventful day passed off peacefully and happily, as many others had done.
During the protracted progress of the sonata, the two antiquarians from the Dom Kirche agreed that their engagement—for such they fully considered it now—should, as yet, not be divulged to anyone, not even to Herminia, from whom Ernestine had never before had a secret to withhold.