And with one effort he pulled on the garment which he had still held in his extended left hand, looking at it from time to time with dismay, and again opened the door, this time to pass with steady step along the corridor, down the broad stairs, and into the dining-room below, whose whereabouts he had already ascertained from the servant.
IX
The rest of the party were already assembled. The two girls had appeared arm-in-arm, and kept together, although the Count, who had come forward hastily to meet them, directed his conversation to Elsa alone. He hastened to inform Fräulein von Werben that the carriage that was to fetch the doctor from Prora had been gone a quarter of an hour. Did Fräulein von Werben take any interest in painting, and would she allow him to direct her attention to some of the more important objects that he had brought from the gallery of Castle Golm for the decoration of the dining-room here, which really had appeared to him too bare. This was a Watteau bought by his great-grandfather himself in Paris; that was a fruit-piece by the Italian painter Gobbo, surnamed Da Frutti, a pupil of Annibale Caracci; this large still-life scene was by the Dutchman Jacob van Es. This flower-piece would be peculiarly interesting to her, as it was by a lady, Rachel Ruysch, a Dutchwoman, of course, whose pictures were in great request. Here, on the étagère, was a service of Dresden china, formerly belonging to Augustus the Strong, from whom his great-grandfather, who for many years had been Swedish ambassador at the court of Dresden, had received it in exchange for a team of Swedish horses, the first which had been seen on the Continent; here was an equally beautiful service of Sèvres, which he himself the preceding year had admired at the château of a French nobleman, and had received as a gift from him, out of gratitude for his successful efforts to preserve the château, which he (the Count) had converted into a hospital.
“You do not care for old china, however?” said he, observing that the lady’s dark eyes only very briefly inspected his treasures.
“I have seen so little of it,” said Elsa; “I do not know how to appreciate its beauty.”
“And then we are all rather hungry,” said Meta, “I am at least. At home we have supper at , and now it is .”
“Has not Captain Schmidt been told?” asked the Count of the butler.
“Yes, sir, .”
“Then we will not wait any longer. The courtesy of kings does not seem to be shared by merchant captains. Allow me.”
He offered his arm to Elsa; hesitatingly she laid the tips of her fingers upon it, she would gladly have spared the Captain the awkwardness of finding the whole party at table. But her father had already offered his arm to Meta’s mother, the gallant President had given his to Meta herself; the three couples were moving towards the table which stood between them and the door, when the door opened, and the wonderful figure of a bearded man in a tailcoat and high seaboots appeared, in whom Elsa, to her horror, recognised the Captain. But the next moment she was forced to smile like the others. Meta dropped the President’s arm and fled into a corner of the room, where she tried to conceal behind her handkerchief the convulsive laughter which had seized her at the unexpected appearance.
“I must apologise,” said Reinhold, “but I have unfortunately only just discovered that the haste with which we left the ship was not favourable to a careful choice in my wardrobe.”
“And as that haste was for our benefit, we have the less occasion to lay unnecessary stress upon the small mishap,” said the President very courteously.
“Why did you not apply to my valet?” asked the Count, with mild reproach.
“I think the costume is very becoming,” said Elsa, with a desperate effort to recover her gravity, and a severe look at Meta, who had indeed come out of her corner, but without venturing yet to remove her handkerchief from her face.
“That is much more than I could have possibly hoped,” said Reinhold.
They took their seats at the table; Reinhold exactly opposite the Count and nearly opposite Elsa, while on his left hand sat Meta and on his right Herr von Strummin, a broad-shouldered man with a broad, red face, the lower part of which was covered with a big red beard, and whose big loud voice was the more disagreeable to Reinhold that it was perpetually breaking in upon the gay, good-humoured chatter of the young lady upon his left.
The good-natured girl had determined to make Reinhold forget her previous rudeness, and the keeping of this resolution was so much the easier to her, that now, when the tablecloth kindly covered those absurd boots, she found her first idea of him quite justified; the Captain with his large, bright blue eyes, his sunburnt complexion, and curly brown beard, was a handsome—a very handsome man. After she had attempted to convey this important discovery to Elsa by various significant glances and
