"Are you crazy?" whispered Nelida. "What are you doing here? Leave me this moment! My maid is coming!"
"She is asleep," whispered the youth. "I told her you would not need her. Do you reproach me, countess?--me, who only live in your smiles--to whom a glance of your eyes is heaven or hell!"
"Hush!" she said, leaving him her hand which he had seized. "You are talking nonsense, my friend. But you have a good voice, and, besides, one cannot be angry with you. Vous êtes un enfant!"
CHAPTER X.
On the morning following the soirée, the lieutenant sat in the second story of the same hotel, in the little salon which lay between Irene's bedroom and her uncle's. Although he was continually complaining about his wretched vassalage to friendship, he had, nevertheless, presented himself again in good season in order to receive the watchword for the day. Inasmuch as he had not the faintest regular occupation, this pretext for passing away the hours was, in reality, heartily welcome to him. More than this, Irene's strangely resigned and yet self-reliant character, her repellent manner and almost bluntness, joined as they were with all the charm of youth, attracted him more than he knew or cared to admit.
The Fräulein was still invisible when Schnetz arrived. He found the uncle seated at breakfast, and was forced to listen to his account of his experiences of the excursion, and of his evening at the club. The baron may possibly have been a good dozen years older than the lieutenant, whom he still continued to treat in his frank and jovial manner, just as he had formerly treated the young fellow who, in Africa, had felt flattered to be kindly taken under the wing of his more experienced countryman and initiated into the mysteries of lion-hunting and other noble pastimes. Sixteen years had passed since then. The baron's hair had grown thin, the little rakish mustache on his upper lip had turned gray, his nervous, thick-set figure had rounded out, and, seen from behind, looked almost venerable; while the long, lank figure of his younger comrade had grown even more spindle-shanked, his face more like parchment, and his movements clumsier than before. For all that the baron let his eyes rest with fatherly satisfaction upon the officer, whom he still called "Schnetz, my dear boy," and patted him encouragingly on the shoulder; all of which Schnetz, who would have grimly resented any such familiarity from any one else, received with great patience from him.
"Bonjour, mon vieux!" cried the baron, with both cheeks full, when Schnetz entered. "My little highness is still resting from the fatigues of a musical entertainment given by a Russian lady here in the hotel. Come, light a cigar. No?--don't be afraid! On neutral ground smoking is allowed. That is the only thing which I, the best guarded of guardians, ever succeeded in carrying through against my ward's wishes. Positively I have regretted a hundred times that I didn't marry, and bring a few lively boys into the world. If they had tyrannized over me, I should know well enough for what sins I had to suffer. Now don't wink for me to speak lower. She is accustomed to hear these sighs of agony from me. She knows that her slave lets his hands and feet be put in chains, but not his tongue. To be sure," he continued, concluding this lamentation--which he had pronounced with far too jolly an air for it to excite serious sympathy--"to be sure, my dear Schnetz, my yoke was never so bearable as it is here in your blessed Munich: before all else, because you have lent your shoulder to the wheel, and I have a substitute in you such as I have wished for in vain at my own house, when my severe little niece has led the old lion-hunter about by her apron-string like a meek lamb."
Then he related how he had made the most charming acquaintances at the club yesterday, and what a cordial tone he had found there.
"You South Germans are really a fine race of men!" he cried, excitedly. "Everybody is so open, so true-hearted, in his négligé, just as God made him. You don't have to feel about a long time until you get through all the padding, and reach something like a human core; but whatever there is in you appears on the surface, and, if it doesn't please, it can't be helped. For that reason, of course, one sometimes comes across a slight roughness, which, however, only does you honor."
Schnetz puckered his mouth to an ironical grimace.