"I have seen, indeed, how very fluent you are in this language. Shall I not often hear it from you?"
"Hardly," said the young man, gloomily. "You return, as I hear, to Italy shortly, I--remain here in the North. Who knows if we shall ever meet again."
"Our manager intends to remain here until May," interrupted the Signora, quickly. "So our meeting to-day will surely not be our last?
Certainly not--I count positively on seeing you again."
"Signora!" This pa.s.sionate outbreak of Almbach"s lasted only for a second. Suddenly a recollection or warning seemed to shoot through him; he drew back and bowed low and distantly.
"I fear it must be the last--farewell, Signora."
He was gone before it was possible for the singer to utter one word regarding this strange adieu, and he seemed to be in earnest about it, as not once during the whole evening did he approach the dangerous "circle of the sun."
CHAPTER II.
"That is too bad. This mania really begins to surpa.s.s all limits. I must forbid Reinhold all cultivation of music if he continues to pursue it in so senseless a manner."
With these words, the merchant Almbach opened a family council, which took place in the parlour, in his wife"s and daughter"s presence, and at which, fortunately, the special object of the same did not a.s.sist.
Herr Almbach, a man about fifty, whose quiet, measured, almost pedantic manner, generally served as a pattern for all the office people, appeared to have quite lost his equilibrium to-day, by the above-named mania, as he continued, in great excitement--
"The bookkeeper came home this morning about four o"clock from the jubilee, which I had left directly after midnight. From the bridge he sees the garden house lighted up, and hears Reinhold raving over the notes, and lost to all sense of sight and hearing. Of course he could not accompany me to the feast! he declared himself to be ill; but his "unbearable headache" did not hinder him from maltreating the piano in the icy-cold garden-room until morning"s dawn. I shall be hearing again from my partners that my son-in-law has been doing his utmost in uselessness as well as in carelessness. It is hardly credible! The youngest clerk understands the books better, and has more interest in the business, than the partner and future head of the house of "Almbach & Co." My whole life long have I worked and toiled to make my firm secure and respected, and now I have the prospect of leaving it, at last, in such hands."
"I always told you that you should have forbidden his a.s.sociating with the Music-Director, Wilkins," interrupted Frau Almbach, "he is to blame for it all; no one could get on with that misanthropical, musical fool.
Everyone hated and avoided him, but with Reinhold that was all the more reason to form the most intimate friendship with him. Day after day he was there, and there alone was laid the foundation of all this musical nonsense, which his master seems to have bequeathed to him at his death. It is hardly bearable since he had the old man"s legacy--the piano--in the house. Ella, what do you say, then, to this behaviour of your husband?"
The young wife, to whom the last words were addressed, had so far not spoken a syllable. She sat in the window, her head bent over her sewing, and only looked up as this direct question was addressed to her.
"I, dear mother?"
"Yes, you, my child, as the affair affects you most. Or do you really not feel the irresponsible manner in which Reinhold neglects you and your child?"
"He is so fond of music," said Ella, softly.
"Do you excuse him also?" said her mother, excitedly. "That is just the misfortune, he cares for it more than for wife or child; he never asks for either of you if he can only sit at his piano and improvise. Have you no idea of what a wife can and must demand from her husband, and that, above all, it is her duty to bring him to reason? But to be sure, nothing is ever to be expected of you."
The young wife certainly did not look as if much were to be expected of her. She had little that was attractive in her appearance, and the one thing about her that could perhaps be called pretty, the delicate, still girlishly slender figure, was entirely hidden under a most unbecoming house dress, which in its boundless plainness was more suggestive of a servant than of the daughter of the house, and was made so as to disguise any possible advantages which there might be. Only a narrow strip of the fair hair, which lay smoothly parted on her brow, was visible, the rest disappeared entirely under a cap more suited to her mother"s years, and offering a peculiar contrast to the face of the barely twenty-years-old wife. This pale face with its downcast eyes, was not adapted to arouse any interest; it had no expression, there lay in it something stolid, vacant, that nearly approached to stupidity, and at this moment, when she let her sewing drop and looked at her mother, it betrayed such helpless nervousness and senselessness, that Almbach felt obliged to come to his daughter"s a.s.sistance.
"Leave Ella alone!" said he in that half-angry, half-compa.s.sionate tone with which one rejects the interference of a child, "you know nothing is to be done with her, and what could she effect here?"
He shrugged his shoulders and continued bitterly; "That is the reward for the sacrifice of adopting my brother"s orphan children! Hugo throws all grat.i.tude, all reason and education in my face, and runs away secretly; and Reinhold, who has grown up in my house, under my eyes, causes me the greatest anxiety, with his good-for-nothing hankering after all fancies. But with him, at all events, I have kept the reins in my hand, and I shall draw them so tightly now, that he shall lose all inclination to chafe against them any more."
"Yes, Hugo"s ingrat.i.tude was really outrageous!" Frau Almbach joined in. "To fly from our house at night, in a fog, and go to sea, "to try his luck alone in the world," as he said in the impudent letter of farewell which he left behind him! Two years since there actually came a letter to Reinhold from the Captain; and the former hinted only lately, quite openly, about his probable return. I fear he knows something positive about it."
"Hugo shall not cross my threshold," declared the merchant, with a solemn motion of his hand. "I know nothing of this interchange of letters with Reinhold, and will know nothing. Let them correspond behind my back, but if the unadvised youth should have the audacity to appear before me, he will learn what the anger of an offended uncle and guardian is."
While the parents prepared to discuss this apparently often-treated theme, with the wonted details and ire, Ella had left the room unnoticed and now descended the staircase leading to the office, situated on the ground floor. The young wife knew that now, at midday, all the people would be absent, and this probably lent her courage to enter.
It was a large gloomy room; whose bare walls and barred windows caused it somewhat to resemble a prison. No trouble had been taken to impart any comfort or even a pleasant appearance to the office. And what for?
What belonged to work was there; the rest was luxury, and luxury was a thing that the house of Almbach and Co., notwithstanding its notoriously not inconsiderable wealth, did not allow itself.
At present no one was to be found in the room, excepting the young man, who sat at a desk with a big ledger open before him. He looked pale and as if he had been up late; his eyes, which should have been busy with figures, were fixed on the narrow strip of the sun"s rays which fell slantingly across the room. In his gaze was something of the longing and bitterness of a prisoner, to whom the sunshine, penetrating into his cell, brings news of life and freedom from without. He hardly turned his head at the opening of the door, and asked indifferently--
"What is it? What do you want, Ella?"
Every other wife at the second question would have gone to her husband and put her arm round his shoulder. Ella remained standing close to the doorway. It sounded far too icily cold, this "What do you want?" she evidently was not welcome.
"I wished to ask how your headache is?" she began, shyly.
"My headache?" Reinhold recollected himself suddenly. "Ah, yes, I think it has gone."
The young wife closed the door and came a step or two nearer.
"My parents are very furious again, that you were not at the feast yesterday, and were playing, instead, the whole night long," she told him hesitatingly.
Reinhold knitted his brows. "Who told them? you perhaps?"
"I?" her voice sounded half like a reproach. "The bookkeeper saw the garden house lighted up, and heard you playing as he returned this morning."
An expression of contemptuous scorn played around the young man"s lips, "Ah! I certainly had not thought of that. I did not believe that those gentlemen, after their jubilee, would have time or inclination left for observations. To be sure for spying they are always ready enough."
"My father thinks--" began Ella, again.
"What does he think?" shouted Reinhold. "Is it not enough for him that from morning to evening I am bound to this office; does he even grudge me the refreshment I seek at night in music? I thought that I and my piano had been banished far enough; that the garden house lay so distant and so isolated, that I could run no risk of disturbing the sleep of the righteous in the house. Fortunately no one can hear a sound."
"Not so," said the young wife, softly, "I hear every note when all is still around, and I alone lie awake."
Reinhold turned round and looked at his wife. She stood with downcast eyes and thoroughly expressionless face before him. His glance swept slowly down her figure as though he were unconsciously drawing some comparison, and the bitterness in his features became more plainly displayed.
"I am sorry for it," he replied coldly, "but I cannot help your windows looking into the garden. Close your shutters in future, then it is to be hoped that my musical extravagances will not disturb your sleep any more."
He turned over the pages of his book, and appeared to lose himself again in his calculations. Ella waited about a minute longer, but as she saw that not the least notice was taken of her presence, she went away as noiselessly as she came.
She had hardly left before Reinhold flung the ledger from him with a pa.s.sionate movement. His glance, which fell upon the contemptuously-treated object, and was cast around the office, showed the most bitter hatred; then he laid his head on both arms and closed his eyes, as if he wished to see and hear no more of the whole surroundings.
"G.o.d greet you, Reinhold!" said a strange voice suddenly, quite close to him.
He started up, and looked bewildered and inquiringly at the stranger in sailor"s clothes, who had entered unnoticed and now stood before him.
Suddenly, however, a recollection seemed to shoot through him, as with a cry of joy, he threw himself on the new-comer"s breast.
"Is it possible, Hugo!--you here already?"
Two powerful arms embraced him firmly, and a pair of warm lips were pressed again and again upon his.
"Do you really know me still? I should have picked you out from amongst hundreds. Certainly you do look rather different from the little Reinhold I left behind here. Well, with me I suppose it is not much better."