Not a soul was to be seen in the dimly-lighted hall above; but all the doors stood open on account of the heat, and poured forth a mixture of lamp-light, smoke, and noise, while the floor creaked under the regular tread of the dancers, and the air trembled with the surly grumbling of a gigantic bass-viol. The dancing-hall lay at the extreme end of the corridor. Felix walked along it without looking into any of the other rooms until he reached the end door, where he found that, by standing behind the spectators, he could comfortably overlook all that was going on within. The bridegroom seemed to be a young forester, and his bride a burgher's daughter from the city. Consequently, the whole affair had a certain something about it which distinguished it favorably from ordinary country weddings, and the couples spun around through the spacious hall in quite an orderly fashion, and without the customary shouting, screaming, and romping, to the music of several stringed instruments, a solitary clarionet, and the occasional sound of a woodman's horn.
The first couple that Felix made out through the blue mist of tobacco-smoke was Rosenbusch with his Nanny. And, to his surprise, he saw Elfinger and his sweetheart waltzing gracefully close behind them; and the future bride of heaven seemed to abandon herself without much resistance to this worldly pleasure.
And now even the young countess herself appeared amid this mixed company, whirled by the young baron, her betrothed, far more rapidly than would have been good ton at a court ball. Her brother, the count, stood in a retired corner, apparently paying his court to Aunt Babette, who would not let herself be seduced into dancing again for any price in the world. In the adjoining room, which he could only half overlook, he perceived his friend Kohle, absorbed in an earnest conversation with the countess.
No trace of Irene anywhere! Could she have hidden from him? It was hardly possible that she could be in the other rooms, where the more elderly relatives of the bridal couple sat, eating and talking. And yet he must know whither she had gone, in order to spare her another painful meeting.
A waiting-maid entering through one of the open doors just at this moment, he determined to ask her about the Fräulein. But when he called to the tidy-looking girl, and she turned her head toward him, a half-joyful, half-embarrassed cry of surprise escaped them both. A little more and the girl would have let the mugs fall from her hands. Trembling and blushing she put down her load on a chair, and covered her face with her hands.
"What a queer place to meet you in, Zenz!" said Felix, going up to her kindly and holding out his hand. "How long have you been here? But you don't know me any longer!--or won't you give me your hand because you are angry with me?"
The girl stood motionless, leaning against the wall and deeply flushed, her hands outstretched, with the fingers wide-spread as if in supplication. She was dressed much more daintily than the waiter-girls down-stairs; her thick red hair, hanging in two heavy braids down her back, was wound around with a little string of corals, and her arms were bare to the elbow. Her charming figure showed to advantage in its short dress and tight-fitting bodice, and a little rose in her bosom set off the whiteness of her neckerchief and of her little coquettish waitress's apron. It was no wonder she found suitors enough out here in the country, and could play the prude toward the young boatman.
"Well, Zenz," Felix began again, for she still remained silent, "is it all over with our old friendship? You ran away from me once so treacherously, you naughty child--I searched every corner for you--but I bear you no malice on that score. Look here, perhaps you can tell me what has become of the young Fräulein?--the tall one with the water-proof? She is not with the others."
"I know the one you mean well enough," the girl answered, suddenly growing quite unembarrassed, for he behaved so coolly and seemed to have forgotten all the past. "You mean the handsome one who has something distinguished about her, more than all the rest. She couldn't stand it long in the hot rooms, but had a chamber given her up-stairs, so as to be all alone, for she had such a terrible headache, she said. Do you know her? But of course you do; you came with the party. Why, I shouldn't wonder if she were your--"
She broke off and peered in his face, with a sly look. Something of her old frivolity flickered up in it; but then she scornfully curled her lips.