He smiled at her reserve, and contented himself with pressing his lips tenderly again and again upon her hand, as he said, caressingly, "Preparation? Oh, my darling, my darling! Meet me to-night at the railway-station at ten, and we will start for Florence. Leave all the rest to me."
"To-night it would be impossible," she said: "it is our reception evening. I could not leave without giving rise to a search for me."
"Then to-morrow?" he persisted, speaking very quickly in his beguiling, irresistible voice. Everything about him betrayed the feverish insistence of a man who suddenly gives free rein to a passion which he has hitherto with difficulty held in check.
"To-morrow," she repeated, anxiously,--"to-morrow----"
"Do not delay, Erika, if you are really resolved."
"To-morrow be it, then!" The words came syllable by syllable from her lips in a kind of dull staccato.
"Erika!" His eyes shone, his whole being seemed transfigured.
"Yes," she went on, "Constance Mühlberg has arranged an excursion to Chioggia to-morrow in a steamer she has chartered. My grandmother is to chaperon the party. At the last moment I will refuse to accompany her, and I shall then be free. When shall I come?"
They decided upon taking the train leaving between eight and nine in the evening for Vienna. Then other necessary details were arranged, a process unutterably distasteful to Erika, to whom it seemed like making the business arrangements for a funeral. She suffered intensely in thus descending to blank, prosaic reality from the visionary heights to which she had soared.
At last everything had been discussed: there was nothing more to be said. A great dread then stole over her: she grew very silent.