the old man screamed in greeting. "Remember that in future."
Leo made no response, but calmly turned the key in the lock and then put it in his pocket.
"Now, uncle," said he, "we will have a talk."
There was a certain friendly decision in his manner, which did not impress the old man pleasantly. Still he was going to show that he had not drunk himself into a courageous frame of mind for nothing.
"Quite right, my dear boy," he said, leaning back with a lofty air.
"You have come to apologise to your old uncle, which is only what I should have expected of you, considering how we are related to one another."
"I wish to remind you, my dear uncle," said Leo, "that, at the present moment, you are still in my service."
"Eh, what! Service!" sneered the old man. "I spit at your service."
And he spat.
"I am not asking you why, on my first day at home, you have taken the first opportunity of getting drunk, because I think I pretty well understand your temperament. I ask you only, whether you would rather sleep it off first, or whether you feel in a position to answer my questions straight away."
"What do you mean by in a position?" the old fellow snarled. "I am in a position to answer anything--that is to say, if I choose."
"Very well, then," said Leo; "in that case I am here as your master, and I must request you to stand before me."
"What! What! I stand?"
"Get up!" said Leo, and lifting the sofa in the air, he shook the old man off it, as if he were shaking a cat out of a feather-bed. Then he gave the worm-eaten piece of furniture a mighty kick, and with a grinding sound it fell to pieces.
The old man reeled against the table and gave Leo the crafty, savage look of a wild boar at bay.
"I"ll remember this of you," he growled,
"I quite see," Leo went on, "that it is useless to try and get you to render me an account of my financial affairs, ... and that is not what I have come about. It is true that you have succeeded in playing the deuce with a large amount of my property, and the rest I shall have to put in order myself, to the best of my ability. Schumann and the accountant will explain the details to me. This much I have already ascertained, that if I thought it necessary, I should have abundance of material with which to put police-inspector Schuster on your track."
"Better and better," the old man said with a laugh of scorn, and began to toy with the pig"s bladder.
"But don"t think for a moment," Leo continued, "that I intend to do anything of the kind. Not that the relationship between us counts for anything. You could not very well bring more disgrace on my house than you have done during the last four years. Neither would the recollection of our old friendship deter me. I have had to pay dearly enough for it. No, I have another reason for coming here."
"So it seems," scoffed his uncle.
"Look, here, old man; since we met last night it seems to me that you have been trying to intimate by various hints that you hold me in the hollow of your hand, that you have only to open your mouth to bring me to utter ruin, and I don"t know what besides. Well, you are mistaken, dear uncle. You think, probably, that you have still the foolish, dissolute youth to deal with, who was once weak enough to let you lead him into all sorts of disreputable sc.r.a.pes. You haven"t the slightest idea who it is stands before you now. Do you know, uncle, what a desperado is? It is a man who has learnt the greatest wisdom in life; which is, that there"s nothing in the world he need lose, so long as he doesn"t use feeble means to get it, but instead stakes life and death on what he wants,--even if the thing be nothing bigger than a trouser-b.u.t.ton. Such a desperado, I have come back to you, my dear uncle, and if you don"t stop your d.a.m.ned grinning at once, I"ll strike you down like a dog."
He raised his clenched fist, which for a few seconds waved like a swinging axe over the old man"s stubby head. His last sneer choked in his throat, and he took a step backwards and crouched in terror against the wall. Then, with a laugh, Leo stuck his hand in his pocket.
"That"s a sample for you, uncle," he said. "People shall do what I will have them do, or go to the devil. And now listen again. When I decided to come home, I knew perfectly well what a kettle of fish I should find. And then I looked at my pistols (I have a splendid pair of pistols, uncle dear, but I haven"t got them here, because, just at present, I don"t need them to take aim at you), and I said to myself, these beggars have helped me out of many a tight corner, where life and death were the stakes, why should I let them rust in old Europe, when the same will be for the most part nothing but a trouser-b.u.t.ton. You are a trouser-b.u.t.ton, uncle, nothing more or less. Don"t be offended.... All I insist on is that you hold your tongue! I will have that cursed intrigue (you know which!) buried for ever and ever. Should it come to light, should I hear the slightest indication that you have breathed a word of what you know, then I shall take out one of my beautiful pistols and blow you into the skies. Do you believe me?"
"Don"t joke," stuttered the old man, and squinted towards the door.
"You needn"t be frightened, my dear little uncle," Leo laughed. "I told you that I hadn"t got them with me. They are not necessary yet; this is only a preliminary warning. When I want you I shall find you, no matter where you may be. I should take a heathenish joy in hunting you down.
We learn that sort of sport on the other side, uncle. Do you believe me?"
The old steward cringed further backwards, and clinging to the window-ledge, struggled to speak.
"How can you treat me like this?" he burst forth in half-strangled utterance. "I would go through fire and water for you. I would have cut off my right hand for you, and you shake your fist at me and threaten me with pistol-shots, and all the rest of it."
"Only for a certain emergency, you know," Leo interposed.
"Such suspicion!" went on the old man; "such want of confidence! I have kept as silent as the grave. I would rather have bitten my tongue out than said anything.... I have been plagued and racked by conscience all these years, and this is my reward!--this is my reward!"
In utter helplessness he began to cry like a baby. Leo waited till his grief had subsided, and then gave his commands.
By that evening he was to have left the castle, and the neighbourhood by the next morning. In case he should cherish ill-feeling and in consideration of his being a relation, a month"s salary should be paid him at some place over the frontier--it was not certain where--probably either at Warsaw or Wilna, so that he might lead a decent life.
The old man said, "Thank you," humbly, and grovelled.
"When shall the carriage be ready, uncle?" asked Leo, opening the door.
Uncle Kutowski said that he had only to pack and to bid the ladies farewell, but if he might be allowed he should like to take a little nap before his departure.
"Sleep away, then, old sinner," said Leo, clapping him on the shoulder; and as his uncle seemed unable to move from the spot, either from emotion or fright, he took him by the arm and led him with gentle care to his bed, where he covered him up with his cloak which hung near on the wall. Then he went his way whistling "Paloma."
Before he sat down to his writing-table again, he ordered Christian to bring up a bottle of the oldest wine in honour of the day, and as he poured out the first gla.s.s and held it toward the youthful likeness of his friend, he said between his clenched teeth--
"Long live brute-force, little girl. It has saved both you and I to-day, from a catastrophe."
The same evening the arrival of the carriage from Uhlenfelde was announced.
He had not expected a visit from his friend so soon, and a thrill of joy and at the same time of alarm ran through him.
The visitor clasped his hand with the old genial pressure, which dispelled at once the anxious presentiment of a moment before. But the pale face wore an excited expression, and the sunset glow which came through the windows was reflected in the feverish glitter of his tired eyes.
"You are not well," said Leo, who read on the familiar features the story of recent mental excitement.
That Felicitas had something to do with it, and his own homecoming, it was not difficult to guess.
"Let me sit down quietly for a few minutes," Ulrich said, pressing his hand against his left side. "I shall be better soon."
He refused Leo"s offers of refreshment, and with short hard gasps breathed in the perfumed evening air which was wafted into the room from the garden. When Leo saw him leaning back in his old accustomed place in the corner of the sofa, his heart bounded. How often they had sat together there, making youthful plans, while the gra.s.shoppers chirruped outside, and the solemn quavering strains of a concertina sounded from the stables!
They had often touched on the subject of marriage, and had agreed that their wives must be two bosom friends, or, better still, two sisters, so that their old hearts" intimacy should not be sacrificed.
Nothing seemed changed outwardly to-night. The gra.s.shoppers chirruped; the concertina began timidly, as if uncertain whether it might dare, now the master had come home. And yet everything was different.
"Still I have got _him_!" Leo"s soul cried aloud. "And I will not let him slip through my fingers."
"You have seen how things are now with your own eyes," Ulrich said, sitting up, "I am afraid there"s not much to congratulate you upon."
"I have found nothing but gross negligence," Leo a.s.sented.
"If I may venture to advise you, I should get rid of the old man, despite considerations of kinship and friendship. At all events, he isn"t much use to you."