"Leo, are you ill?"
"No." He fixed on her a morose and vacant gaze.
"Have we offended you, Leo?"
"No."
"Haven"t you the least bit of love left for me?"
He saw her pleading eyes, her quivering lips, and for a moment he was moved to sorrow, but the rising emotion was extinguished instantly, like a lighted match in a water-b.u.t.t.
"Leave me alone," he said. "I want nothing but to live in my own way, and not to be too intimate with any one," and he turned his back.
She stroked his sleeve twice, thrice, and with this timid endearment slipped quietly away.
The next moment he heard her scolding the lady"s maid because she had not ironed a strip of tulle properly.
"Fortunately things don"t go very deeply with her," he thought. And then he was filled with disgust at his own conduct. Was he going to sacrifice his mother, too, to that nameless ghost of the past?
The big covered sleigh came round at seven o"clock, and half an hour later he followed it, in a small sleigh with one horse, as usual driving himself. A pale moonlight illumined the white expanse of snow from which the peasants" huts and farm-buildings rose in shapeless ma.s.ses of shadow. The distance was enshrouded in a milky haze, setting the groups of trees in silver.
The road lay on this side of the river, but pa.s.sed through Wengern and close by the ferry. Two sleighs belonging to distinguished company had just been deposited here as he came up, and he heard the music of their bells as they rattled on ahead of him. He would have known the tone of the Uhlenfelde sleigh-bells amongst a thousand, and he was satisfied that they were not amongst these. Would she be there? Would she be there?
And he stretched himself, for he was stiff and cramped with suspense.
But when he reached the stables certainty awaited him. There stood the Kletzingks" old Wilhelm, touching his cap to him with the familiar grin which is permissible from the servants of a friendly house. It occurred to him that, after all, Ulrich might have come too, and the thought filled him with alarm. He would have liked to ask, but an undefinable feeling of shame stifled the words in his throat.
Then he slowly walked to the house. The castle of Stoltenhof to-night resembled a camp. The hall was arranged with booths and refreshment-stalls like a fair, and civil and military uniforms moved about in the gay throng. The officers of both the Munsterberg and Wartenstein-Uhlan regiments were everywhere very active, rendering the a.s.sistance which seemed too much for the legs of the more deliberate country "junkers."
Leo was met by his host, whose copper-coloured countenance, with its record of past pleasures, was beaming with good-humour and self-satisfaction.
"Ha! so you have ventured out of your sh.e.l.l," was his shrill greeting.
"Come along, come along, they are breaking their hearts for you in the salon."
"Are your boys there?" Leo asked, longing, but not daring, to inquire for Ulrich.
"Of course! Of course! The young dogs are all there, the whole boiling lot laying siege to your fair cousin."
"Cousin! What cousin?"
"Why, your cousin Felicitas, naturally; you lucky beggar."
Leo was only too glad to forget the relationship. The reminder of it now stabbed him like a knife.
"And I can a.s.sure you she is in her old form! For a long time she seemed so altered, and made no disguise of being bored--probably she was grieving. But since the reconciliation between your two families she has been herself again."
Leo bit his lips. So they were talking about that already. Pa.s.sing a number of hands outstretched to shake his, he made his way to the door of the salon.
Despite its ugly furniture and low smoky ceiling, with a six branched zinc chandelier, it wore a festive aspect to-night, and blossomed like the rose with youth and beauty. A garland of fir boughs, decorated with lights, hid the palisade of famous racers from view, and lent an unwonted grace to the usually severely utilitarian apartment. The fragrance of firs and the shimmer of candle-light gave a flavour of the coming Christmas feast to the whole picture.
The young people were dancing with zeal to the strains of a modest fiddle and piano. His little sister, flushed and radiant in the arms of her partner, floated by. And while his eyes searched in burning eagerness for Felicitas, they fell on Hertha, who looked at him for a moment in cool disdain, and then turned her back abruptly. Her dainty, haughtily poised little head was unbecomingly coiffured, and her thin neck rose stiffly from her childishly undeveloped bosom. She was not looking her best.
He would have gone and spoken to her, in case the coldness between them should be remarked, when he saw steering towards him the mountainous form of the lady of the house, whose hand he had come to kiss.
"You should really take a little more care of our fair Felicitas, dear von Sellethin," she said, accepting his respectful salute with gracious condescension.
Leo wondered what she meant, for there was an undertone of distinct displeasure in her voice.
"Your friend is away," she continued, "and I believe that next to him you are responsible. Excuse my speaking so openly, but since I had the happiness to bring about the reconciliation between you, I feel that I may, without offence, claim the rights of friendship, too."
"Please be a little more explicit, my dear madame."
"Oh, there is nothing to explain. I only would hint that she needs an eye over her,--we all know she is a bit of a flirt, in a harmless way, of course; but she may be guilty of indiscretions which might be exaggerated by mischievous tongues, and I have no desire that a fresh scandal shall take its rise under my roof."
His feelings were of mingled alarm and relief. No one suspected. What had once excited suspicion had been forgiven and forgotten.
"Madame, put my mind at rest, in Heaven"s name, and tell me what"s going on?"
"Nothing very bad. But come and see for yourself." She led him through the crowd of dancing couples to a small ante-room, dimly lighted by pink Chinese lanterns, where the windows were thrown open, it being the first cooling retreat from the ballroom. Felicitas was sitting directly in the icy draught surrounded by a circle of admirers, who filled with noise and laughter the retiring place in which they had no business to be, as they ought to have been dancing.
Leo saw, and his wrath rose so fiercely that at first he could scarcely breathe.
"Here is another friend of yours, my dearest," said Frau von Stolt before she went away. "Now your gra.s.s-widowhood will be completely consoled."
Leo felt that this was a thrust at himself as well as her, and he grew still more furious.
"Friend, brother and cousin rolled into one," cried Felicitas, holding out her ungloved left hand to him. "Why has your majesty not been seen for such ages?"
"You will catch cold, Felicitas," was his answer. "Don"t fuss, my friend, but give your lion"s paw to these young men, and be a _bon garcon_."
Lizzie"s "wild team," as they ent.i.tled themselves with pride, were all there--Otzen, Kra.s.sow, Zesslingen, and Neuheim, and the two soldier sons of the house, of course.
It had all been in vain, then, the sacrifice of his manliness, the plunge into a maze of lies and deceit. She had reopened the undignified flirtation with these silly boys without troubling herself about his opinion. He might have spared himself everything; all the long anguish, beginning on the Isle of Friendship that September morning, and culminating on the altar steps the other day. A red haze dimmed his sight, the invariable signal of one of his most furious outbursts.
"Pull yourself together," an inward voice commanded. He realised that in any pa.s.sage of arms with these youths he must be worsted, as she apparently was oblivious of any harm being done. So he shook hands with them and then said very firmly--
"You know, Felicitas, how careful Ulrich is of your health. I cannot stand by and see you catch your death. Take my arm."
She dared not refuse point-blank, for she dreaded a serious remonstrance on his part. She got up, and laying her hand on the arm of the younger Stolt, she said--
"He who is my cavalier mustn"t try to be my master, too, dear Leo.
Come, Fritz, and let us dance."
She curtsied, and with her feet already beating time to the music of the waltz, she rustled past him.
"Never mind, Sellenthin," said young Zesslingen, navely, "she treats us worse than that, even."
To the rage of mothers and the chagrin of sisters, the troop of youths now took up their post at the door of the salon, awaiting the moment when their charmer should stop to rest, and they be able to rush to her again.
As Leo was making his way back to the hall, he encountered Kurt Brenckenberg, mincing and smug, with fresh wine-stains on the silk lappets of his dress-coat. He whistled indifferently to conceal an uneasy conscience, and made a sharp detour to avoid Leo. The latter remembered the song of "The Smiling Stars," and he beckoned Elly to come and speak to him for a moment. She flew from her partner"s arms to his, half wild with triumph in her conquests.