The stupidest and most innocent of country grandmothers could not have exulted more frankly in her grand-daughter's triumph than did the clever Countess Lenzdorff. She was never weary of hearing the child praised: her appetite for compliments was inappeasable.
When Erika, transformed and modestly shy in her new gown from Petrus, appeared among the guests, she aroused enthusiasm afresh, and was immediately surrounded. She won the admiration not only of all the men present, but also of all the old ladies. Of course the younger women were somewhat envious, as were likewise the mothers with marriageable daughters. In a word, nothing was lacking to make her appearance a brilliant success.
Her grandmother presented her right and left, and was unwearied in describing in whispered confidences to her friends the girl's extraordinary talents and capacity. Any other grandmother so conducting herself would have been called ridiculous, but it was not easy so to stigmatize Anna Lenzdorff; instead there was some irritation excited against the innocent object of such exaggerated praise, the girl herself, to whom various disagreeable traits were ascribed. The younger women pronounced her entirely self-occupied and thoroughly calculating.
She was both in a certain degree, but after a precocious, childish fashion, that was diverting, rather than reprehensible.
Countess Mühlenberg, the wife of an officer in the guards who did not appreciate her and with whom she was very unhappy, had appeared as Senta out of pure good nature, and held herself quite aloof from Erika's detractors,--in fact, she showed the young débutante much kindness,--but Dorothea Sydow's dislike was almost ill-bred in its manifestation.
She was a strangely fascinating and yet repulsive person,--very well born, even of royal blood, a princess, in fact, but so wretchedly poor that she had rejoiced when a simple squire laid his heart and his wealth at her feet. Her family at first cried out against the misalliance, but finally consented to admit that the young lady had done very well for herself. Some of her equals in rank came even to envy her after a while, for all agreed that there was not in the world another husband who so idolized and spoiled his wife, indulging her in every whim, as did Otto von Sydow his Princess Dorothea.
He was Goswyn's elder brother, and the heir of the Sydow estates, which was why there was such a difference in the incomes of the brothers. In all else the advantage was decidedly on Goswyn's side.
Otto looked like him, but his face lacked the force of Goswyn's; his features were rounder, his shoulders broader, his hands and feet larger, and he had a great deal of colour. The 'wicked fairy' maintained that he showed the blood of his bourgeoise mother.
Countess Lenzdorff, who had been an intimate friend of the late Frau von Sydow, denied this, insisting that the Sydow mother had enriched the family not only by her money but also by her pure, strong, red blood. In fact, Otto was a genuine Sydow: such types are not rare among the Prussian country gentry.
He was one of the men who always show to most advantage in the country and out of doors, for whom a drawing-room, even the most spacious, is too confined. In a brilliant crowd he looked as if he could hardly catch his breath. With the shyness not unusual in men with much-admired wives, he was wont to efface himself in a corner, emerging to make himself useful at supper-time, and never speaking except when he encountered some one still less at home in society than himself. He was never weary of watching his wife, devouring her with his eyes, drinking in her grace and beauty.