As if overcome with emotion, he had thrown the letter into the drawer and stretched out both his hands: “Now go, in God’s name, my son, and remember that no father could more truly mean well towards you than I do!”
Antonio bent down and kissed the outstretched hands, moved and conquered by the superior mental power of the man, his mind filled with a confusion of ambitious hopes and dazzling dreams of satisfied love, as quickly followed by the fear that all was but a dream and an illusion, and that this great magician was playing with him, as he himself as a boy had often, enough done with a bird fluttering on a string.
He was gone. Giraldi touched the bell. François came in.
“I told you that no one was to come in, without exception!”
“Monsieur had always received the young man, and he was so pressing.”
“It may pass for this time; the next time you commit such a blunder, you are dismissed without appeal—mind that.”
He locked his letter into his drawer.
“I will dress without assistance; see that the carriage is ready in ten minutes.”
He went into the next room through which Bertalda had previously taken flight. François shook his fist behind him, and then again smiled his fawning smile, as if he would not admit even to himself that he had ventured to threaten the mighty man.
XI
“You will see, Carla, he will not come today either,” said Frau von Wallbach, trying to find if possible a more comfortable position in her armchair.
“Je le plains, je le blâme, mais—” Carla, who was sitting at the piano, played a scale very softly with her right hand.
“And Fräulein von Strummin has also gone away without paying us a farewell visit.”
“Silly little thing,” said Carla, repeating her scale.
“And Elsa has never once been here to apologise for the omission.”
“So much the worse for her,” said Carla.
“I wash my hands of the blame,” said Frau von Wallbach, slowly rising and going into the reception-room which some of the dinner guests were entering.
Carla was also getting up, but remained sitting when she heard that it was a lady, and moreover one of little importance. She let her hands fall into her lap, and looked thoughtfully down before her.
“He is not half so clever, he often evidently does not understand what I say; I think even he is un peu bête. But he—adores me. Why should I give up my adorers for a betrothed who never troubles himself about me? He would soon drive them all away.”
The door behind her into the anteroom was opened. Only intimate friends at small entertainments ever entered through this apartment—her room. The newcomer must be either Ottomar or the Count. She had heard nothing, and as the steps came nearer over the thick carpet, let her fingers wander dreamily over the keys, “Already sends the Graal to seek the loiterer—”
“Fräulein von Wallbach!”
“Ah! my dear Count,” said Carla, looking up a little, and giving the Count her left hand over her shoulder, whilst the right played “My Trusty Swan.” “Will you not go first and say ‘how do you do’ to Louisa? She is in the drawing-room with Frau von Arnfeld.”
The Count lifted the carelessly-given hand to his lips, “And then?” he asked.
“You can return here—I have something to say to you.”
The Count came back in half a minute.
“Draw that chair here—not so near—there—and don’t let my strumming disturb you. Do you know, my dear Count, that you are a very dangerous man!”
“My dear Fräulein von Wallbach!” cried the Count, as he twirled his moustaches.
“You must be so, when even Louisa already thinks so. She has just preached me the most charming sermon.”
“But what have I done? All the world worships you; why should I not dare what all the world may do?”
“Because you are not all the world.”
“Because—”
Carla lifted her eyes; the Count was always bewitched when he could look into those blue eyes, unhindered by glasses, under whose weary, drooping eyelids a secret world of tenderness and archness seemed to him to be concealed.
“Because I have come too late,” he whispered passionately.
“A man should not be too late, my dear Count; it is the worst of faults in war, in politics, in everything. You must bear the consequence of this fault—voilà tout.”
She played:
“Only one year beside thee,
As witness of thy bliss, I asked.”
The Count gazed before him in silence.
“He takes it for earnest,” thought Carla. “I must rouse him up again a little.”
“Why should we not be friends?” she said, reaching out her right hand to him, whilst the left played:
“Return to me! and let me teach
How sweet the bliss of purest truth.”
“Certainly, certainly!” cried the Count, imprinting a long, burning kiss on the offered hand; “why should we not be friends?”
“Friendship between pure souls is so sweet, is it not so? But the world is not pure. It loves to blacken all bright things. It requires a security. Give it the best possible under the circumstances. Marry!”
“And that is your advice to me?”
“Mine more especially. I shall gain immensely by it; I shall not quite lose you. More, I cannot—more, I do not expect.”
And Carla played, with both hands:
“Let me convert thee to the faith,
One bliss there is, without remorse.”
“Good God, Carla—my dear Fräulein von Wallbach! do you know that something similar—almost in the same words—”
“You have heard from Signor Giraldi,” said Carla, as the Count paused, embarrassed. “You may say it out, I do not mind. He is the cleverest of men, and one can keep nothing secret from him, even if one wished to do so, and—I do not so wish; you also—need not wish it. He is very fond of you. He wishes you well; believe me and trust in him.”
“I believe it,” said the Count, “and I should trust him implicitly, if the engagement which is in question did not also include just a little touch of
