The captain"s face took on an odd expression. "There is no danger of your allowing a stranger to make love to you," he muttered. "Your disagreeable characteristic is that you will not allow even me to make love to you."
Katrine raised her eyebrows: "I have an aversion for _rechauffees_."
The captain took instant advantage of his opportunity: "You certainly cannot expect to be the first woman who I--hm!--thought had fine eyes?"
But Katrine was very busy with her household accounts, and consequently she had no time at present to indulge in her favourite amus.e.m.e.nt, a lively discussion.
"Don"t agitate yourself, my dear," she rejoined, "but go and write a beautiful letter to Rohritz; and do it quickly, that it may go by to-day"s post. Shall I compose it for you?"
"Thanks, I think I am equal to that myself," the captain replied, with a laugh. "Upon my word, a poor dragoon has to put up with a deal from so cultivated a woman."
As he turned to go, Katrine called after him: "I warn you beforehand that I have a weakness for Rohritz. All the rest is your affair. I wash my hands of it."
Nothing so aroused Katrine Leskjewitsch"s sarcasm as the problematical conscientiousness of those young wives who combine a decided love for flirtation with a determination to cast all the blame for it upon their husbands, posing in the eyes of the world as suffering angels at the side of black-hearted monsters. Her ridicule of such women was sharp and plentiful.
"A deuce of a woman!" the captain murmured as he betook himself to his library and--rare effort for a dragoon--indited a letter four pages long to his old comrade.
His friend"s epistle, strange to say, touched Rohritz. It was so cordial, so frank, and so warmly sympathetic, such a contrast to the formal a.s.surances of sympathy which he met with elsewhere, that he accepted the invitation extended to him, and made his appearance at Erlach Court a week afterwards.
He had been here now for three weeks, and had been really content, especially during the early period of his visit, when he had been alone with his host and hostess. The arrival of the general and Stasy had somewhat annoyed him, and the news of the approach of another detachment of guests consisting, moreover, of a mother and daughter positively irritated him. Good heavens! another mother, another daughter! Was there then no spot upon the face of the globe where one could be safe from mothers and daughters?
CHAPTER III.
THE ARRIVAL.
A telegram had finally announced the arrival of the Meinecks by the 10.30 morning train at H----, the nearest railroad-station, tolerably distant from Erlach Court.
It is almost noon; the captain and Freddy have driven over to the station to meet the guests, and the rest of the family are on the terrace outside of the dining-room. The hostess, dressed as usual with puritanic simplicity in some kind of dark linen stuff, deliciously fresh and smelling of lavender, is leaning back in a garden-chair, diligently crochetting a red-and-white afghan for her little son"s bed.
The general, in a very youthful felt hat adorned with a feather, is chuckling in a corner over a novel of Zola"s. Anastasia is fluttering gracefully hither and thither, fancying the while that she looks like a Watteau. In pursuance of her lamentable custom of wearing her shabby old evening-gowns in the country in the daytime, she has donned a much-worn sky-blue silk with dilapidated tulle tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, and is surprised that her faded splendour appears to fail to dazzle those present.
"Life is pleasant here, is it not?" asks Katrine, looking up from her crochetting at Rohritz, who faces her as he leans against the bal.u.s.trade of the terrace. "I am trying my best to induce my husband to leave the service and retire to this place. He is still hesitating."
"Hm! Do you not think that for a man of his temperament existence at Erlach Court would be a trifle monotonous?" is Rohritz"s reply.
"He can occupy himself," Katrine makes answer, shrugging her shoulders.
"If I mistake not, you have rented the farm at Erlach Court?"
"Yes, thank heaven!" Frau von Leskjewitsch admits, with a smile.
"Farming is usually a very costly taste for dilettanti. But he has entire control over the forests and the vineyards; they would give him plenty to do; and then he is an enthusiastic horseman, and the roads are very fine."
Rohritz is silent, and thoughtfully knocks off the ashes from his cigar with the long nail of his little finger. He cannot help thinking that Katrine Leskjewitsch, exemplary as she may be as a mother, has her faults as a wife. Jack Leskjewitsch is not yet eight-and-thirty, and she is prescribing for him a life suited to a man of sixty.
"It is certainly a pity to cut short his career," Rohritz remarks, after a while, "especially since he pa.s.sed so brilliant an examination for advanced rank last year."
"Yes, his talent is indubitable," Katrine a.s.sents: "one would hardly think it of him. He devotes but little attention to study, as I can testify, and I certainly did not coach him, as did the wife of an unfortunate captain who pa.s.sed the same examination." The corners of Katrine"s mouth twitched. "What do you think was the end of the united efforts of husband and wife? Two weeks after barely and laboriously pa.s.sing his examination the worthy man was a maniac. In fact, no fewer than seven of my husband"s fellow-students in that course lost their reason. "Tis odd how much ambitious incapacity one encounters in this world! Jack does not belong in that category, however. He adores the service, but he has not a particle of ambition."
All this is uttered with a seemingly woful lack of interest.
""Tis a pity that she does not sympathize more fully with Les," Rohritz thinks to himself; but all he says is, "And yet you would have him relinquish his career?"
"A cavalry-man who looks forward to a career ought not to marry,"
Katrine maintains. "Probably you can recall the delights of a military, nomadic existence for a family, particularly in those holes in Hungary.
Such hovels!--a stagnant swamp in front, a Suabian regiment installed in the rooms, and no sooner have you got things into a civilized condition than you have to break up to the sound of boot and saddle. In one year I changed my abode three times. I could have borne it all so far as I was concerned, but there was the child. Freddy became subject to attacks of fever, so I bundled him up and brought him here. He recovered immediately, and I wrote to my husband that he must choose between his family and the army."
"That was to the point, at least," said Rohritz.
"Yes. He was apparently offended, and did not answer my letter for a month. Then he was seized with a longing for--for the child. He alighted in the midst of our solitude like a bomb at Sevastopol. Of course we were charmed to see him, and he was so delighted with Erlach Court that he was quite ready to turn his back on the service. I, however, do not approve of hasty decisions, and so I advised him to postpone his change of vocations----"
"His resignation of a vocation," Baron Rohritz interpolated.
"What a hair-splitting humour you are in today!" Katrine rejoined, with a shrug, "to postpone for a while his resignation, if that pleases you.
So he obtained leave of absence for a year. Hm!--I am afraid he is beginning to be bored. I cannot understand it. You must admit that we are charmingly situated here."
"Indeed you are."
"The estate is in good order," Katrine went on, "and we have no neighbours."
"A great advantage."
"So it seems to me. One of the most disagreeable sides of an army life was always, in my opinion, the being forced into a.s.sociation with so many unpleasant people. Most of my husband"s comrades were very agreeable, unusually kindly, pleasant men, but to be forced to accept them all, and their wives into the bargain without liberty to show any preference,--it was simply odious. I am a fanatic for solitude; the usual human being I dislike; but you cannot throw everybody over, however you may desire to do so,"--with a glance over her shoulder towards Stasy and the general. "I beg you will make no application to yourself of my remark."
"Much obliged." Rohritz bowed. "I confess I began----"
"No need of fine phrases," Katrine interrupted him. "You know I like you. And in proof of it--you may have heard that we want to pa.s.s the winter here; it will be delightful! entirely lonely,--shut off from civilization by a wall of snow,--Christmas in the country,--the children from three villages to provide with gifts,--the castle quite empty, except for our three selves and Freddy! Well, in proof of my genuine friendship I invite you to share with us this charming solitude. Will you come? Say you will." Dropping her work in her lap, she offers him both her hands.
"A curious creature! She treats me like an aged man, and moreover considers herself sufficiently elderly to dispense with caution in her intercourse with the other s.e.x. An odd illusion for a woman still extremely pretty," Rohritz thinks; and, occupied with these reflections, he does not immediately reply.
"You decline?" she asks, merrily. "I shall not throw away such an invitation upon you a second time."
"They are coming! they are coming!" Stasy exclaims, clapping her hands childishly and tripping to and fro in much excitement.
"I do not hear the carriage," Katrine rejoins, looking at her watch.
"Besides, it is not time for them yet."
"But I hear something in the avenue---- Ah, please come, dear Edgar,"
Stasy entreats.
Rohritz does not stir.
"Baron Rohritz!" in an imploring tone.
"What can I do for you, Fraulein Stasy?"