"Baron Rohritz!" in an imploring tone.
"What can I do for you, Fräulein Stasy?"
"Your opera-glass--be quick!" And, while Rohritz reluctantly rises to go for the desired optical aid, Stasy lisps, "Not at all over-polite; quite like a brother: just what I enjoy."
"It is they," Katrine exclaims. "The carriage is just turning into the avenue. Let me have it for a moment,"--taking from his hand the glass which Rohritz has just brought. "Yes, now I see them quite distinctly."
A few minutes later the rattle of approaching wheels is heard. The two ladies and the general hasten down to receive the guests. Rohritz discreetly withdraws to his apartment, and from behind his half-drawn curtains watches the arrival. The carriage stops, the captain springs out to aid two ladies to alight. At first Rohritz hears nothing but a hubbub of glad voices, sees nothing but a confused group, the general standing on one side with a polite grin on his face, and Freddy giving vent to his joyous excitement by performing a war-dance around the party.
When the situation at last becomes clear, he perceives a very handsome old lady in a close black travelling-hat, a pair of blue spectacles shielding her eyes from the dust, and wearing a dust-cloak which may once have been black, while beside her--he adjusts his eye-glass in his eye--assuredly Stella does not remind him of the 'hysterical tree-frog' of frightful memory, but of some one else, for the life of him he cannot remember whom. He looks and looks, sees two serious dark eyes in a gentle childlike face beneath the broad brim of a Kate-Greenaway hat, a half-wayward, half-shy smile, charming dimples appearing by turns in the cheeks and at the corners of the mouth, a delicately-chiselled nose, a very short and rather haughty upper lip, beneath which gleam rows of pearly teeth, and for the rest, the figure of a sylph, rather tall, still a little too thin, and with a foot peeping from beneath her skirt that Taglioni might covet.
He looks and looks. No, Stella certainly does not remind him of the 'hysterical tree-frog,' but as certainly she recalls to his mind something, some one--who is it? who can it be?
An unpleasant surmise occurs to him, but before it can take actual shape in his brain the impetuous entrance of the captain has banished it.
"Come to the drawing-room, Rohritz, and be presented to the ladies," he calls out. "By the way, what means this wretched idea of which Stasy informs me? She says that you are going back to Grätz immediately."
"The fact is, my lawyer has summoned me," Rohritz replies; "but--hm!--I fancy the matter can be settled by letter. At any rate, I will try to have it so disposed of."