"What have you to do with tête-à-têtes with young men?" the Baroness asks, with dramatic effect, the same Baroness who sent her child to a singing-teacher three times a week without an escort. "It is improper,--very improper. What must Rohritz think of you? You will come to be like your aunt Eugenie!"
CHAPTER X.
[FREDDY'S BIRTHDAY.]
It is not to be denied that Stella's behaviour is always unconventional and sometimes very thoughtless. On the whole, however, her little indiscretions do not detract from her great natural charm. The Baroness, not having taken any pains with her education, never of herself notices these little indiscretions. But if a stranger alludes to them her maternal ambition is profoundly outraged, and the inevitable result is the bursting of a thunder-storm above Stella's innocent head, a storm always sure to culminate in the fearful words, "You will come to be like your aunt Eugenie!"
The real meaning of these words Stella never understands, since no one has ever told her what has become of her aunt Eugenie, but she knows that their significance must be terrible. Cowed and unhappy, she glides about after every such explosion as if guilty of some crime, until her bright animal spirits gain the upper hand and she begins afresh to talk and to be thoughtless.
Her mother's last indignant remonstrance puts an end to all the kindly freedom of her intercourse with Rohritz. She avoids him so evidently, is so stiff and monosyllabic with him, that he at last questions the captain as to the cause of this change, and receives from his friend a distinct explanation.
"It is indeed no great bliss to be my sister's daughter," the captain concludes. "Beneath her mother's intermittent care Stella seems to me like a noble, sensitive horse beneath a very bad rider. I hate to look on at such cruelty to animals, and I should be heartily glad to find a good husband for her before her mother entirely ruins her. He will have to be a good, noble-hearted fellow, clever and gentle at once, with a firm, light hand, and plenty of money, for the child has nothing,--more's the pity."
The time never flies faster than in summer: with no hurry, but with graceful celerity, the lovely July days glide past in their rich robes of dark green and sky-blue. The genii of summer play about us, fling roses at our feet, and strew the grass with diamonds. They offer us happiness, show it to us, whisper insinuatingly, "Take it,--ah, take it." And some of us would gladly obey, but their hands are bound, and others, remember how they once, on just such enchanting summer days, stretched out their hands in eager longing for the roses, and at their touch the roses vanished, leaving only the thorns in their grasp, and they turn away with a mistrustful sigh. Others, again, examine the offered joy hesitatingly, critically, refuse to decide, linger and wait, and before they are aware the beneficent genii have vanished; autumnal blasts have driven them away with the roses and the foliage. The sun shines no longer, the skies are gray, and a cold wind sings a shrill song of scorn in their ears.
'Passing!--passing!' One week, two weeks have passed since the Meinecks arrived at Erlach Court. Each day Rohritz has found Stella more charming, each day he has paid her more attention, but his real intimacy with her has increased not one whit.