"You were thinking, then----?"
"Yes, I was thinking, in fact, that it is strange that you should have left it to chance to bring about our meeting." The words are amiable enough, but they sound cold and constrained as Erika utters them.
"Do you imagine that I have made no attempt to find you again, Countess?"
"I imagine that if you had seriously desired to find me it would not have been difficult."
He does not speak for a moment, and then he begins afresh: "You are right,--and you do me injustice. When I learned that my dear little poorly-clad princess had become a great lady, I did, it is true, make no attempt to approach her; but before then---- Do you care to hear of my unfortunate pilgrimage?"
"Most assuredly I do."
"Well, eight years after our childish interview I had my first couple of hundred marks in my pocket. I bought a new suit of clothes--yes, smile if yon choose,--a new suit, which I admired exceedingly--and journeyed to Bohemia. I found the village, the brook, and the bridge, and likewise the castle; but all had gone who had once lived there,--even the amiable Herr von Strachinsky,--and no one knew anything of my little princess. I was very sad,--too sad for a fellow of three-and-twenty."
He pauses.
"And was that the end of your efforts?" asks the old Countess, whose sharp ears have lost nothing of the story, and who now turns to the pair with a laugh. "You showed no amount of persistence to boast of."
"When, overtaken by the rain, I took refuge in the parsonage of the nearest village," he continues, "I made inquiries there for my little friend. The priest gave me more information than I had been able to procure elsewhere. He told me that one fine day some one had come from Berlin to carry little Rika away,--that she was now a very grand lady----"