She is a shy bride and not at all melancholy.
She is not a shy bride, and not at all melancholy. Her eyes shine, her lips quiver with excitement--distinguished acquaintances, foreign entertainments of which she will be queen. In mind, she already sees herself on the arm of one and another prince of the blood royal. She could clap her hands with joy that to-day at six o'clock she will no longer be called Harfink.
She remains standing beside a pond where near the bank four swans, shivering and melancholy, swim round a yellow bath-house. Then a hand is laid lightly on her shoulder. "Felix!" whispers she with the charming smile which she always has in readiness for her betrothed.
"No, not Felix--only Eugene," replies a gay voice, and blond, handsome, with clothes a trifle too modern, and a too pronounced perfume of Ylang-ylang, her cousin and former admirer stands near her.
"Ah, have you really come?" says she, joyously.
"Why naturally," replies he. "You do not think that for the sake of a few forlorn chamois I would stay away from your wedding?" Rhoeden has come from Steinmark, to be the cavalier of his cousin's second bridesmaid.
"We had already begun to fear--that is, Emma was afraid," said Linda, coquettishly. "Naturally it was indifferent to me."
"Wholly indifferent? I do not believe it," said he. His arm has slipped down from her shoulder, he has seated himself upon a low iron garden chair, from which, with elbows on his knees, his face between his hands, with the boldness which she likes so well in him, he can look at her as much as he pleases.
"Wholly indifferent!" she repeats, and throws a pebble between the swans, who dip their black bills greedily in the green water.