“It goes to my heart to see the boy looking so sad and worn,” said Frau Anna; “but my Aenchen will comfort him; and I could not wish her a better husband.”
The shoemaker smiled proudly. “There’s no fault to be found with Louis,” he said, “except that he lets this man Clare lead him about by the nose; and the same may be said of your Fritz, Frau Anna.”
“Fritz will fight when the time comes,” replied the other, her thin face and wild, dark eyes glowing with repressed enthusiasm. “He is all for peace now, but when the signal is given he will remember that he has a wife and child to defend, and a father’s death to avenge.”
“He has more,” murmured George below his breath. No one heard him, and if his heavy features looked a shade more sullen, nobody was sufficiently at leisure to observe it; indeed, as we know, George had never been troubled with overmuch observation. Of a reserved, sullen temperament, too sluggish for mischief, but immovably obstinate if crossed or contradicted, and subject to occasional fits of almost delirious rage, his education had consisted almost solely of that judicious letting alone, a little of which is considered so advantageous. “Let sleeping dogs lie,” was the established rule for treating him; yet, even half understood as he was, it should have seemed a dangerous experiment thus to train and drill him into the thought of revenge.
In spite of his apparent slowness of thought, he had in some matters the quick scent of a bloodhound, and knew far more about the story of his brother’s marriage than any one imagined. A question or two to Denny the porter, a half-glimpse of a box of trinkets which Fritz was putting up to return to the donor, a look upon Gretchen’s face when Frank Randolph’s name was casually mentioned,—these were enough, perhaps more than enough, for George; for it is quite certain his suspicions were not, at least, less than the truth.
Not a hint of all this crossed his lips. Fritz had married her, and taken the burden of her escapade upon his own shoulders; in which last respect, if he were willing to take her at all after all that had happened, George considered him quite right. In his quiet, sullen way, George would have died for Fritz, whose good-nature had warded off many a collision with the other’s sullen temper; while his bright, ready wit had shielded and protected his younger brother from many an attack, and backed him up in many a quarrel. Therefore, George had mentally inscribed upon the cryptogram which, like Madame Lafarge, he was always knitting, the name of Francis Randolph, accompanied with signs denoting vengeance upon him, his house, and his posterity, to the fourth generation and beyond. But for the present he bided his time; Gretchen’s name must not be made a subject of gossip.
At the very moment of the conversation above recorded, Louis and Annie were wandering along the river-bank in very lover-like fashion, it must be admitted; for she was leaning on his arm, and looking into his face with soft, attentive eyes; while he was talking earnestly, opening the very depths of his heart, talking as he could only talk to Annie Rolf.
“I don’t think I deceive myself about her, Aenchen,” he said; “I seem to see all her faults, and yet love her the better for them.”
“I cannot quite understand that, Louis,” said the girl, smiling; “for me, I could not love without respect; I must look up and see, at any rate, few faults, and none that I could despise.”
“Then you should love one like Mr. Clare,” said Louis; “I don’t know any one else who would suit you.”