“I begged very hard for it,” said he, “and only got it with difficulty, but I represented that she might get more of them, whereas I—”
He stopped, for two reasons. I was weeping as I returned it to him, and the train rolled into the Elberthal station.
On my way to Dr. Mittendorf’s, I made up my mind what to do. I should not speak to Stella, nor to any one else of what had happened, but I should write very soon to my parents and tell them the truth. I hoped they would not refuse their consent, but I feared they would. I should certainly not attempt to disobey them while their authority legally bound me, but as soon as I was my own mistress, I should act upon my own judgment. I felt no fear of anything; the one fear of my life—the loss of Eugen—had been removed, and all others dwindled to nothing. My happiness, I am and was well aware, was quite set upon things below; if I lost Eugen I lost everything, for I, like him, and like all those who have been and are dearest to both of us, was a Child of the World.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
“Oftmals hab’ ich geirrt, und habe mich wiedergefunden,
Aber glücklicher nie.”
It was beginning to be dusk when we alighted the next day at Lahnburg, a small way-side station, where the doctor’s brand-new carriage met us, and after we had been bidden welcome, whirled us off to the doctor’s brand-new schloss, full of brand-new furniture. I skip it all, the renewed greetings, the hospitality, the noise. They were very kind. It was all right to me, and I enjoyed it immensely. I was in a state of mind in which I verily believe I should have enjoyed eating a plate of porridge for supper, or a dish of sauerkraut for dinner.
The subject for complacency and contemplation in Frau Mittendorf’s life was her intimacy with the von Rothenfels family, whose great, dark old schloss, or rather, a portion of it, looking grimly over its woods, she pointed out to me from the windows of her salon. I looked somewhat curiously at it, chiefly because Eugen had mentioned it, and also because it was such a stern, imposing old pile. It was built of red stone, and stood upon red-stone foundations. Red were the rocks of this country, and hence its name, “Rothen-fels,” the red rocks. Woods, also dark, but now ablaze with the last fiery autumn tints, billowed beneath it; on the other side, said Frau Mittendorf, was a great plateau covered with large trees, intersected by long, straight avenues. She would take us to look at it; the Gräfin von Rothenfels was a great friend of hers.
She was entertaining us with stories to prove the great regard and respect of the countess for her (Frau Mittendorf) on the morning after our arrival, while I was longing to go out and stroll along some of those pleasant breezy upland roads, or explore the sleepy, quaint old town below.