CHAPTER III.
SWORD-PLAY.
Full of conflicting thoughts Lewie Baronald, with a slower pace than usual, proceeded towards the residence of the Countess van Renslaer, and quitting the Lang Vourhout, he crossed the canal that encircles the whole Hague.
If compelled by his powerful uncle's eccentric opposition to act the laggard now, he might leave Dolores to be won by his rival Morganstjern! Such things have been, and may be again. His brain whirled and his heart sank at the thought; and even if he had the permission of the Director-General of Infantry accorded him, could he ask the brilliant Dolores to share his solitary room in the barracks—the Oranje Caserne—of the Scots Brigade?
The thought was full of folly and presumption. He was not quite aware of the full extent of the hostile—yet well-meant—design his uncle the General was forming, for an effectual separation between him and the object of his love. He had left her yesterday with the avowed intention of obtaining the sanction of the General, from whom he had a yearly allowance: and now that the sanction was withheld, he was in sore perplexity, for by the then rules of the Dutch service no officer could marry without the consent of his superior; and how was he to tell Dolores that this had been bluntly refused, and that even exile or foreign service menaced him?
While these thoughts were passing through his mind, he came suddenly upon Maurice Morganstjern; he was seated under one of the trees that bordered the canal near the Hooge Wal, and was leisurely polishing the blade of his rapier with his leather glove, while conversing with a friend.
He was rather a handsome but dissipated-looking young fellow, and had shifty eyes and a very sinister expression of face. He wore his sandy-coloured hair powdered and tied, a smart Nivernois hat (such hats were all the rage about 1780), small, and with the flaps fastened up to the brim with hooks and eyes; his costume was bright in colours and richly laced.
That of his companion was the reverse. He wore an old battered Khevenhüller hat; his shaggy hair was unpowdered; his ruffles were soiled and torn; his visage was bloated and his eyes bloodshot and watery, while a scar on his nose, covered by a piece of black court-plaster, did not add to the respectability of his appearance: and Lewie Baronald, who knew him to be the Heer van Schrekhorn, a noted bully, gamester, and frequenter of gambling-houses and estaminets, barely accorded him any recognition, though feeling himself compelled to present his hand to Maurice Morganstjern.
'How now, Mynheer—have you been fighting?' he inquired laughingly of the latter.
'No; only polishing some specks off my sword,' replied Morganstjern, with a smile on his thin lips, though there was none in his watery grey eyes; 'but apropos of fighting—do you affect that?'