“Forgotten you, Adelheid!” she exclaimed quickly, pushing her fair hair from her brow, for her head ached after her fatiguing journey; “why, I am always thinking of the dear old place, and of you—who used to scold me so.”
“When you deserved it, my Princess,” laughed the pleasant old woman. “Ah!” she added, “those were happy times, weren’t they? But you were often really incorrigible, you know, especially when you used to go down into the valley and meet young Carl Leitolf in secret. You remember—eh? And how I found you out?”
Claire held her breath for a moment at mention of that name.
“Yes, Adelheid,” she said in a somewhat changed tone. “And you were very good. You never betrayed our secret.”
“No. Because I believed that you both loved each other—that boy-and-girl love which is so very sweet while it lasts, but is no more durable than the thistledown. But let us talk of the present now. I’ll go and order dinner for you, and see that you have everything comfortable. I hope you will stay with us a long, long time. This is your first return since your marriage, remember.”
“Where is my father?” her Highness asked, taking off her hat, and rearranging her hair before the mirror.
“In the green salon. He was with the secretary, Wernhardt, but I passed the latter going out as I came up the stairs. The Archduke is therefore alone.”
“Then I will go and see him before I dine,” she said; so, summoning all her courage, she gave a final touch to her hair and went out, and down the winding stairs, afterwards making her way to the opposite side of the ponderous stronghold, where her father’s study—called the green salon on account of the old green silk hangings and upholstery—was situated.
She halted at the door, but for an instant only; then, pale-faced and determined, she entered the fine room with the groined roof, where, at a table at the farther end, her father, in plain evening dress, was writing beneath a shaded lamp.
He raised his bald head and glanced round to see who was the intruder who entered there without knocking. Then, recognising his daughter, he turned slowly in his writing-chair, his brows knit, exclaiming coldly the single inquiry,—