Slowly through the windows the morning stole into the room, while the black flag continued to flap and rustle against the castle wall, like a prisoned bird aimlessly beating its wings against the bars of its cage, and the dog whined on.
[CHAPTER XLIV.]
SPRING.
A few days afterwards Lato's body was consigned to the family vault of the Treurenbergs,--not, of course, without much funereal pomp at Dobrotschau.
With him vanished the last descendant of an ancient race which had once been strong and influential, and which had preserved to the last its chivalric distinction.
The day after the catastrophe Harry received a letter from Paula, in which, on the plea of a dissimilarity of tastes and interests which would be fatal to happiness in marriage, she gave him back his troth. As she remained at Dobrotschau for an entire week after the funeral, it may be presumed that she wished to give her former betrothed opportunity to remonstrate against his dismissal. But he took great care to avoid even a formal protest. A very courteous, very formal, very brief note, in which he expressed entire submission to her decree, was the only sign of life his former captor received from him.
When Paula Harfink learned that Harry had left Komaritz and had returned to his regiment in Vienna, she departed from Dobrotschau with her mother and sister, to pass several months at Nice.
In the beginning of January she returned with the Baroness Harfink to Vienna, heart-whole and with redoubled self-confidence. She was loud in her expressions of contempt for military men, especially for cavalry officers, a contempt in which even Arthur Schopenhauer could not have outdone her; she lived only for science and professors, a large number of whom she assembled about her, and among whom this young sultaness proposed with great caution and care to select one worthy to be raised to the dignity of her Prince-Consort.
Selina did not return with her mother to Vienna, but remained for the time being with a female companion in Nice. As is usual with most blondes, her widow's weeds became her well, and her luxuriant beauty with its dark crape background attracted a score of admirers, who, according to report, were not all doomed to languish hopelessly at her feet.
Fainacky, however, was never again received into favour.