The melody rose again, the absorbing book lay on the floor, and for a while the bellows received a pretty girl’s full, almost feverish, attention.
Presently she looked again at Ludovic and made a comic expression of disgust. He stood irresolute, telling himself that he ought to go, yet yielding to the temptation to linger. The girl’s facial suggestion was now supplemented, after a vehement sending down of the indicator, by a pantomime of weariness. There must have been an object in these signals, yet Ludovic did not take the hint. So Minna, abandoning vagueness, plainly beckoned to him, making signs that he should take her place at the bellows. The invitation could scarcely be disregarded. He came forward and took his position by the lever, while the girl slipped away and settling herself on a more comfortable bench, avidiously resumed her exciting story.
For about half an hour the music continued, Ludovic gravely keeping to his work at the bellows, and Minna, save for an occasional sly upward glance, seeming absorbed in her book. There were breaks in the playing between the ending of one piece and the beginning of another. In one interval of silence, as Ludovic stood waiting for the organ to swell out again, he looked up and saw the Princess standing before him. His involuntary glance at her face told him nothing. He bowed low.
“Pardon, Princess,” he said soberly, “the Countess was tired and I ventured to take her place.”
Minna had sprung up and came forward with a look of mingled apprehension and sly enjoyment of the situation.
“It is true, Highness,” she corroborated. “My arms began to ache and my book was so exciting that I asked Herr von Bertheim to blow till I had rested and the duel was over. One cannot blow the organ properly when one is in a state of terrific suspense.”
The Princess’s face gave no indication of how she took the situation.
“It is perhaps more a man’s work,” she said coldly. “I am obliged to Herr von Bertheim. I did not know he was in the chapel.”
Still no sign whether his presence gave her offence or not.
“I was passing down the Broad Walk when the music stopped me and drew me in,” he explained. “I had no idea, until I saw the Countess, that the player was your Highness.”