Upon her narrative came an interruption. A servant threw open the door very wide, announcing the Gräfin von Rothenfels. Frau Mittendorf rose in a tremulous hurry and flutter to greet her noble guest, and then introduced us to her.
A tall, melancholy, meager-looking woman,—far past youth—on the very confines of middle age, with iron-gray hair banded across a stern, much-lined brow. Colorless features of a strong, large, not unhandsome type from which all liveliness and vivacity had long since fled. A stern mouth—steady, lusterless, severe eyes, a dignity—yes, even a majesty of mien which she did not attempt to soften into graciousness; black, trailing draperies; a haughty pride of movement.
Such was the first impression made upon me by Hildegarde, Countess of Rothenfels—a forbidding, if grand figure—aristocrat in every line; utterly alien and apart, I thought, from me and every feeling of mine.
But on looking again the human element was found in the deeply planted sadness which no reserve pride could conceal. Sad the eyes, sad the mouth; she was all sad together—and not without reason, as I afterward learned.
She was a rigid Roman Catholic, and at sixteen had been married for les convenances to her cousin, Count Bruno von Rothenfels, a man a good deal older than herself, though not preposterously so, and whose ample possessions and old name gave social position of the highest kind. But he was a Protestant by education, a thinker by nature, a rationalist by conviction.
That was one bitter grief. Another was her childlessness. She had been married twenty-four years; no child had sprung from the union. This was a continual grief which imbittered her whole existence.
Since then I have seen a portrait of her at twenty—a splendid brunette, with high spirit and resolute will and noble beauty in every line. Ah, me! What wretches we become! Sadness and bitterness, proud aloofness and a yearning wistfulness were subtly mingled in the demeanor of Gräfin von Rothenfels.
She bowed to us, as Frau Mittendorf introduced us. She did not bestow a second glance upon Stella; but bent a long look, a second, a third scrutinizing gaze upon me. I—I am not ashamed to own it—quivered somewhat under her searching glance. She impressed and fascinated me.
She seated herself, and slightly apologizing to us for intruding domestic affairs, began to speak with Frau Mittendorf of some case of village distress in which they were both interested. Then she turned again to us, speaking in excellent English, and asked us whether we were staying there, after which she invited us to dine at her house the following day with Frau Mittendorf. After the invitation had been accepted with sufficient reverence by that lady, the countess rose as if to go, and turning again to me with still that pensive, half-wistful, half-mistrustful gaze, she said:
“I have my carriage here. Would you like to come with me to see our woods and house? They are sometimes interesting to strangers.”