“The Fräulein is good enough to make light of it,” he said. “But it is desirable that a doctor should see her hand without delay. Therefore, perhaps, the Herr Graf will pardon me if I suggest that we move on.”
The Herr Graf did not look exactly in a pardoning mood, although the suave smile was still on his face. He wheeled his horse. “I will do myself the pleasure of bearing you company to the Meierhof,” he said in a tone which had in it less of a suggestion than a determination. “Perhaps then I may be allowed to ride into Kulhausen for a doctor. It will be quickest.”
They had moved on together, the Count walking his horse abreast of them and in his insinuating way trying to draw out a circumstantial account of the accident. At a turn in the forest road Von Tressen said, “It is properly I, the culprit, who should go for the doctor. I cannot allow you, Count, to take the trouble. I have a horse at my camp and——”
As he spoke he felt a pressure on his arm. The girl had given him a warning touch. Zarka signified by an indifferent bow that he accepted Von Tressen’s suggestion. But his face grew a shade darker as Fräulein Harlberg said:
“There is really no hurry. We can easily send from the farm. My father will naturally think it right, Herr Lieutenant, that you should come and make his acquaintance.”
The Count gave a tolerant smile, which probably served to mask some darker expression, and the three went on together a short half-mile to the house, Zarka chatting volubly and Von Tressen wondering why the girl had so manifestly objected to his leaving them.
CHAPTER III
A MOMENTOUS MEETING
Gorla’s Meierhof, or Grange, was a picturesque house which had been converted into a kind of shooting-box from a farmhouse, which, in turn, had been adapted from the ruins of an ancient building left centuries before by the Turks. It was a rough and primitive abode, but one which in that wild country would be considered comfortable enough and a not undesirable summer mountain residence, situated as it was on the fringe of the vast hill forests and commanding a view along the great sweep of the valley.
As the three approached the house they saw a man sitting before it smoking and reading a newspaper. At the sound of their voices he turned his head, then rose and sauntered to meet them. He was small but well set-up, somewhat dandified even in the loose lounging suit he wore; there was a good deal of the town man, Von Tressen thought, in his appearance and manner, and, what struck him forcibly, a decided military air in his carriage. This rather surprised him, for had the other been a soldier he would surely at his age have borne a high military title, whereas the Count had distinctly alluded to him more than once as plain Herr Harlberg. But that he had seen enough soldiering to have acquired a manifest military bearing was to the Lieutenant’s mind a certainty.
“At last!” Harlberg exclaimed, a little peevishly Von Tressen thought. “My dear Philippa, where have you been wandering?”