As Charlie opened the dining-room door for them, Ernestine contrived to be the last who passed out, and swiftly and unseen, she slipped into Charlie's hand a tiny scrap of folded paper. This he hastened to open and read covertly, on resuming his place at table. It contained but one pencilled line—
'Be in mamma's boudoir to-night at eleven, when all are in bed.'
He would have pressed it to his lips, but for the presence of those who were with him. Eleven o'clock? The hour was then eight, as a great ormolu clock on the side buffet informed him, and so he had three long hours to wait for this most coveted interview! And for two of those hours he would have to endure the society—or rather the presence—of this most obnoxious rival who had so suddenly started up in his path, and with whom he felt a violent desire to quarrel, but that such an episode would have been alike unseemly, unwise, and calculated to excite suspicion.
They could meet in conversation on the neutral ground of the French war; but in everything he stated, Charlie could not suppress a keen desire to contradict the Baron. The latter asserted that King William would lead the Prussian army in person. To this Charlie gave a contradiction as flat as if he had it from the royal lips. Metz would be, undoubtedly, the chief base of the French operations. This idea he utterly scouted! England would take part in the war, through the influence of the Crown Princess. England would do nothing of the kind, said Charlie—what was the Rhine to her?
The Baron began to elevate his eyebrows, and became silent. The Count looked uneasy; one glass more, he suggested, and then they would join the ladies. They did so; but on entering the drawing-room found the Countess asleep as usual, with the Spitz pug in her lap; Herminia idling over the piano, while longing for Heinrich; and that Ernestine was—which was never her wont—absent.
She had pleaded a headache, and retired to her own room. The Baron looked glum and disconcerted. He had been framing many fine speeches to make to his intended; but now they were no longer required. He should see her no more for that night.
Charlie fingered the little note in his waistcoat-pocket, and felt defiant and jubilant.
The truth was that the Countess and her daughter had almost had high words on the subject of the Baron.
'Mamma,' the latter had said, 'the idea of such a thing is intolerable and absurd!'
'Why absurd, Grafine?' asked her mother, with asperity.