CHAPTER XII.
Meanwhile, the sky had become overcast; a keen wind began to blow, and large drops of rain were falling before Erika reached the door of the lodgings in Maximilian Street.
As she mounted the staircase she heard her grandmother's voice in the drawing-room and recognized the cordial tone which she used when speaking to the few people in the world with whom she was in genuine sympathy. Nevertheless, agitated by her late interview, Erika inwardly deplored the arrangement of their apartments which made it impossible that she should reach her bedroom without passing through the drawing-room. She opened the door: her grandmother was seated on the sofa, and near her, in an arm-chair, with his back to the casement window, was a man in civilian's dress. He arose, looking so tall that it seemed to Erika he must strike his head against the low ceiling of the room. She did not instantly recognize him, as he stood with his back to the light, but before he had advanced a step she exclaimed, "Goswyn!" and ran to him with both hands extended. When, with rather formal courtesy, he kissed one of the hands thus held out as if seeking succour, and then dropped it without any very cordial pressure, she was assailed by a certain embarrassment: she remembered that she should have called him Herr von Sydow, and that it became her to receive her rejected suitor with a more measured dignity. But she was not self-possessed today. The shock of meeting her step-father had unstrung her nerves; the numbness which had of late paralyzed sensation began to depart; her youthful heart throbbed almost as loudly as it had done when she had first ascended the thickly-carpeted staircase in Bellevue Street, as strongly as upon that brilliant Thursday at the Countess Brock's, when, suddenly overcome by the memory of her unhappy mother, she had fled from the crowd of her admirers to sob out her misery in some lonely corner.
Lord Langley's worldly-wise, self-possessed betrothed had vanished, and in her stead was a shy, emotional young person, oppressed by a sense of her exaggerated cordiality towards the guest. She now seated herself as far as possible from him in one of the red plush arm-chairs.
"How long have you been in Bayreuth, Herr von Sydow?" she asked, in a timid little voice, which thrilled the young officer's heart like an echo of by-gone times.
Erika, whose eyes had become accustomed to the darkened light of the room, noted that he smiled,--his old kind smile. His features looked more sharply chiselled than formerly; he had grown very thin, and had lost every trace of the slight clumsiness which had once characterized him.
"I came several days ago: my musical feast is already a thing of the past," he replied.
"Indeed! And what then keeps you in Bayreuth?" Erika asked.
He laughed a little forced laugh, and then blushed after his old fashion, but replied, very quietly, "I learned from your factotum Lüdecke, whom I met the day before yesterday, that you were coming, and so I determined to await your arrival."
She longed to say something cordial and kind to him, but the words would not come. Instead her grandmother spoke.