Giulia started; a dagger always awoke gruesome recollections in her.
Blanden smiled, "Probably some masquerade?"
"Corpo di bacco," said Beate, "the mask is not wanting, but the fun is desperately poor."
She received the dagger from her friend, and was dismissed with a kiss.
Outside, Beate gave the maid instructions to be on the alert and to wait for her even if she should return late. Antonie listened to the directions with lowered eyelids and humble obedience, but at heart she had decided differently. She knew that Blanden would stay at least an hour, and if she should not disturb them, she would follow her own amusements quite as undisturbedly.
Exactly opposite, in the large hall, there was a people's ball, and Friederich, a cunning child of Berlin, servant to Lieutenant Buschmann, had invited her to dance there with him for a little while, and had promised to fetch her. All were pursuing their own pleasures, why should she alone pass the time in solitude?
Giulia was melancholy, Blanden in a softened mood.
Outside, jingled the bells of the sleighs, the winter sky, hard as steel, was covered with clouds, and heavy dense snow-flakes, which fell down soft as wool, proclaimed that the cold had diminished.
The room was so homelike. The tea, which with all its accompaniments, had been brought in by Antonie, who was then graciously dismissed, infused upon the table. The fire crackled on the hearth.
There was nothing to remind one of theatrical tinsel, everything bore the impress of domestic comfort, to which the busts of the great masters of art lent a radiance of idealism.