Directly in the centre of the hawthorn-bordered garden-path there is an easel weighted with an enormous canvas, at which, working away diligently, stands a gentleman, of whom Harry can see nothing but a slightly round-shouldered back, the fluttering ribbons of a Scotch cap set on the back of a head covered with short gray hair, and a gigantic palette projecting beyond the left elbow; while at some distance from the easel, clearly defined against the green background, stands a tall, graceful, maidenly figure draped in a loose, fantastic robe, her arms full of wild poppies, a large hat wreathed with vine-leaves on her small head, her golden-brown hair loose upon her shoulders,--Zdena! Her eyes meet Harry's: she flushes crimson,--the poppies slip from her arms and fall to the ground.
"You here!" she murmurs, confusedly, staring at him. She can find no more kindly words of welcome, and her face expresses terror rather than joyful surprise, as a far less sharp-sighted lover than Harry Leskjewitsch could not fail to observe.
He makes no reply to her words, but says, bluntly, pointing to the artist at the easel, "Be kind enough to introduce me."
With a choking sensation in her throat, and trembling lips, Zdena stammers the names of her two adorers, the old one and the young one. The gentlemen bow,--Harry with angry formality, Baron Wenkendorf with formal amiability.
"Aunt Rosa tells me to ask you to come to the drawing-room," Harry says, dryly.
"Have any guests arrived?" asks Zdena.
"Only my sister and Aunt Zriny."
"Oh, then I must dress myself immediately!" she exclaims, and before Harry is aware of it she has slipped past him and into the house.
Baron Wenkendorf pushes his Scotch cap a little farther back from his forehead, which gives his face a particularly amazed expression, and gazes with the same condescending benevolence, first at the vanishing maidenly figure, and then at the picture on the easel; after which he begins to put up his painting-materials. Harry assists him to do so, but leaves the making of polite remarks entirely to the "elderly gentleman." He is not in the mood for anything of the kind. He sees everything at present as through dark, crimson glass.
Although Zdena's distress arises from a very different cause from her cousin's, it is none the less serious.