"Southern Roses!" one of the gentlemen standing near a window called to the musicians, and immediately there floated out into the night, to mingle with the low whisper of the linden leaves, the notes of the first bars of that most beguiling of all Strauss's beguiling waltzes.
He danced with her, and then--almost rudely--he left her. It was the only time he had danced with her that evening, and now he left the room, hurrying away to be somewhere where that red dress was not before his eyes. And yet he had the sensation of overcoming himself, of denying himself at least a pleasant excitement.
Why? What could ever come of it?
For the first time in several days he joined the gamesters. He played high, with varying luck, but when he left the gaming-table he carried with him the consciousness of having lost more than he was at present in a condition to pay.
He went to his room and began mechanically to undress. A fever seemed burning in his veins; how sultry it was! through the open windows he could see black thunder-clouds gathering in the skies. The air was damp and laden with a fragrance so sweet as to be almost sickening. A low murmur sighed among the leaves of the shrubbery in the park,--melancholy, mysterious, alluring, yet mingled with a soft plaint, breathing above the late summer roses. "Enjoy! enjoy! life is brief!" He turned away, lay down, and closed his eyes; but still he seemed to see the red dress. He could not think of marrying her. A girl from such a family and with such a crowd of insufferable connections! Had she only been a poor little thing whom he could snatch away from her surroundings; but no, if he married her, he was sufficiently clear in his mind for the moment to understand, he must adjust himself to her social position. The power was hers,--money!
Oh, this wretched money! At every turn the lack of it tormented him; he had tried to retrench, to economize, but how paltry such efforts seemed to him! What a good use he could make of it if he had it! She was very beautiful----
A light footfall made itself heard in the passage outside his door. Was not that his father's step? Lato asked himself. The door opened; Count Hans entered, straight, tall, and slender, with haughty, refined features and sparkling blue eyes, very bald, very gray; but what vitality and energy he showed in his every movement! At this moment Lato felt a great admiration for his father, beside whom he himself seemed pitiably weak. He took shame to himself; what would his father say could he know of the ideas which he, Lato Treurenberg, had just been entertaining?
"Still awake, Lato?" the knightly old man asked, kindly, sitting down on the edge of his son's bed. "I saw from below your light still burning, and I wanted to ask if anything were troubling you. You are not wont to suffer from sleeplessness."
Lato was touched, and doubly ashamed of the low, mean way of extricating himself from his difficulties which had but now seemed to him almost possible.
"One's thoughts run such riot, sometimes," he murmured.