‘I believe so; the countess is, at any rate. I have a little country house there, which she was so kind as to say she very much wished to see, and I asked her if she would not make a party and go there with me to-morrow. She said she wanted you to go too, but I don’t suppose she will force you there against your will,’ he added, smiling.
‘It would be anything but against my will. It is a place I have often wished to see.’
‘Then I am glad you are going. There may be time for you to give me your sketch to-morrow morning, early, if you will be so kind; and, as I expect to be in Elberthal during the autumn, may I call at your atelier?’
‘I shall be honoured if you do,’ said Sara, her cheeks flushing with pleasure at this mark of favour. ‘I only fear that you will leave the said atelier a sadder and a wiser man.’
‘As how?’
‘As having discovered my attempts to be very poor, commonplace delusions after all.’
‘That remains to be seen; all I hope is that you will not be offended if one who, by some misfortune, has got such an inveterate habit of pointing out what appear to him the merits and demerits of any composition, should——’
‘That would be of the utmost advantage to me,’ said she, gaily, wondering how long the interview was to last, and wondering also, in strict privacy, whether critics—of that eminence—never relaxed into a laugh; whether a sedate smile were all their lips would condescend to.
How long the interview might have lasted it is impossible to say. At that moment it was interrupted. Frau von Trockenau, with a number of the ingenuous girls before alluded to—whose tender years and inexperience she seemed to find somewhat embarrassing during the ‘off season,’ before the dancing began—Emily Leigh, Jerome Wellfield, Hans Lemde, and others, came up.
‘Oh, Herr Falkenberg!’ cried the countess, seeing him, ‘a word with you.’