"You do not understand, Hartmann. I could not possibly bear such a heavy diet as yours. My const.i.tution would not stand it, besides, tea is of great service to the mental faculties. It quickens me, it stimulates me when the day"s work is done, and when in the quiet eventide the Muses draw near"----
"You mean, when you are making your verses," interrupted Ulric, drily.
"So that is what the tea is for? Well, they are just what I should expect from it."
It was fortunate that the poet was just then busy trying to fix in his memory a rhyme which had come into his mind. He hardly heard the insulting remark, but turned to his companion next minute in quite a friendly way.
"I have something to beg of you, Hartmann, to desire, to demand!" said he, reaching his climax in well-graduated tones. "Something which you must agree to, no matter at what cost. You are in possession of an article which is perfectly worthless to you, but which would make me the happiest mortal under the sun. You must give it up to me."
"What must I give up to you?" carelessly asked Ulric, who, as usual, when Wilberg was talking, had only half listened.
Herr Wilberg blushed, sighed, looked down, sighed a second time, and, after these preliminaries, thought fit to proceed to speech.
"You remember the day when you came to her ladyship"s rescue! Ah, Hartmann, what a pity it is you should have no adequate conception of the poetry involved in such a situation! If I had been in your place!
But we will leave that. She offered you her handkerchief when she saw you were bleeding. You kept it in your hand, while the others were looking to your wound. Good Heavens! you cannot possibly have forgotten such a circ.u.mstance as that!"
"Well, what do you want with the handkerchief?" asked Ulric, suddenly attentive.
"I wish to possess it," murmured Wilberg, casting down his eyes with a melancholy air. "Ask from me what you will, but let me have that precious souvenir of the woman I adore!"
"You!" cried Ulric, in a tone which made the other spring back and look anxiously round to see that no one was by.
"Don"t shout like that, Hartmann! You need not be so horrified because I say I adore the future proprietor"s wife. It is something far different from what you are accustomed to consider as love. It is--but you do not know what a platonic affection means.
"No, I don"t," returned the miner, shortly, increasing his pace, and evidently desirous of breaking off the conversation.
"You cannot possibly understand it," declared Wilberg, with much self-satisfaction, "for you cannot, and never will, rise to that pure elevation of feeling of which only highly-cultivated minds are capable, that feeling which, without a hope, without a desire, can content itself with adoring in silence from afar. Or what do you think a man should do else, if he loves a woman who belongs to another?"
"Overcome his love," said Ulric, in a low voice, "or"----
"Or?"
"Strike the other man down."
Herr Wilberg beat a hasty retreat to the other side of the road, where he remained standing transfixed with horror.
"What brutality! What appalling principles! So you would seal your love by a.s.sault and murder? You are a man to be feared, Hartmann! And you can say such a thing as that with the tone, the look of .... Her ladyship was right when she said you were like one of Nature"s untamed elements which"----
"Who said so?" broke in Ulric, looking at him darkly.
"Her ladyship. "A wild untamed element," she said, and the description was most striking, most apt, Hartmann"-- The young man ventured a little nearer his companion, but timidly still, and approaching him by degrees. "Hartmann, I could forgive you everything, even what you said just now, but the one thing I cannot forgive is your conduct to _her_.
Have you alone no eyes for her beauty and grace, which disarm the very roughest of your comrades, that you should avoid the sight of her, as if it would bring you ill-luck? If her carriage appears in the distance, you turn round and get out of the way; if she rides by, you step into the house nearest at hand, and I warrant, you make that long round every day past the Director"s house, for no other reason than that you might meet her once at the park-gates and be obliged to take off your cap to her. Oh, this stubborn, bitter cla.s.s-hatred, which spares not even women! I repeat it to you, Hartmann, you are a man greatly to be feared."
Ulric was silent. Contrary to his wont, he submitted to these reproaches without answering a syllable, and by so doing, he strengthened Wilberg in the delusion that his arguments had at last produced some effect. Encouraged by this, he began again,
"But to return to the real matter in hand. The pocket-handkerchief"----
"How should I know where the thing is?" interrupted Ulric, roughly. "It is lost, or Martha may have given it back. How should I know!"
Wilberg was just going to launch out into indignation at the indifference with which an object, in his eyes of such priceless worth, was treated, when he suddenly perceived Martha standing before her uncle"s house. He shot down on her like a hawk, and began to question her as to where the said handkerchief might be hidden, whether she had really given it back, or whether, within the range of possibility, it might yet be found.
The girl seemed not quite to understand him at first; when she found out what it was all about her face darkened perceptibly.
"The handkerchief is there still," she said, decidedly. "I thought to do well one day when I took it out and washed the stains from it, but Ulric raved like a madman, because I had even touched the thing. He has got it in his chest."
"Oh! so it was only a pretext for refusing me?" said Wilberg, with a reproachful look at Ulric, who had listened with suppressed anger, and who answered almost with a sneer:
"Make up your mind to it, Herr Wilberg, the handkerchief is not for you."
"And why not, may I ask?"
"Because I mean to keep it," said Ulric, laconically.
"But, Hartmann"----
"When I once say no, I mean it. You might know that, Herr Wilberg."
Wilberg lifted his hands and eyes towards Heaven, as though calling on it to witness the offence done him; but suddenly his arms fell down inert, and he drew himself up quickly, as a voice said behind Martha,
"Can you not inform me, my dear .... Ah, Herr Wilberg! I am interrupting a most animated conversation."
The person addressed stood speechless, overcome at least as much by despair as by delight at this unexpected meeting; for the distressing consciousness was on him, that he, who hitherto had only confronted her ladyship in the faultless attire of full-dress, must now stand before her, arrayed in a blue paletot and green comforter, to say nothing of a nose tipped by the cutting wind with a most unbecoming red. He knew how unfavourable this combination of colour must be to him; not an hour ago he had vowed to himself that he would exchange the green comforter for one of a more flattering hue, and now a mischievous chance had brought him before the eyes of his ideal!
Herr Wilberg wished himself deep down in the shafts, and yet retained sufficient power of thought to be irritated at Hartmann, who, with all the dust of his daily work upon him, stood like a statue, and moved never a muscle.
Eugenie had come along the road which led by the Manager"s house, and seeing at first only the young girl, had entered the garden unnoticed.
Her last question remained a moment unanswered, for both men were silent.
At last Martha spoke. She had cast a rapid glance at her cousin, when the lady appeared on the scene so unexpectedly; now she turned quickly to her.
"We were just speaking of the lace handkerchief your ladyship gave for a bandage, and which has never been returned."
"Ah, yes, my handkerchief," said Eugenie, indifferently. "I had quite forgotten it, but since you have kept it so carefully, child, you can give it me back."
"I did not keep it; Ulric has it." Martha gave him another look, dark and scrutinising as the first, and even Eugenie turned with some surprise to the young man who had greeted her neither by word nor gesture.
"Well, you then, Hartmann! Or do you not wish to restore it?"
Wilberg was growing more and more exasperated at Ulric"s "shameful behaviour," for he stood there motionless with knitted brows and lips firmly closed, and just the same look of stubborn resistance on his face as that with which he had armed himself on entering her boudoir.
One could see plainly that he was struggling with himself to keep down the hatred he felt for his master"s young wife! This time his better nature conquered.
Herr Wilberg noticed that, at the first sound of that voice addressing itself to him, he started, as though p.r.i.c.ked with shame at his own conduct, that a flush rose to his brow, and that his att.i.tude lost something of its defiant hostility. The sermon so lately delivered had certainly had some effect, else how should this stiff-necked Hartmann, whose will was of iron, and who was to be moved neither by fear nor favour, have yielded in silent obedience to a simple question, have turned to the house, and, after the lapse of a few minutes, come back holding the handkerchief?
"Here it is, my lady."
Eugenie took the morsel of cambric, seeming to attach very little importance to it.
"And now, Herr Wilberg, as I have met you here, perhaps you can best give me the information I want. It is the first time I have come by this road, and I find that the bridge which leads to the park is closed by a gate. Can it be opened, or must I go back all round by the works again?"