So said Ferdinanda as she slowly walked through the garden, which led, by a back door, from the studio to the house. The sun threw a shadow from the trees upon the garden wall, as the moon had done last night.
“It really was only a shadow on the wall,” said Reinhold to himself.
X
“I am afraid you will spoil me so dreadfully that I shall find it very difficult to return to my simple way of life,” said Reinhold, as he drove through the Brandenburg gate of the Thiergartenstrasse sitting by Ferdinanda’s side in his uncle’s carriage.
“What is the good of having carriages and horses if they are not to be used?” answered Ferdinanda.
She had thrown herself back upon the cushions with the tip of her foot upon the opposite seat. Reinhold could hardly take his eyes off the exquisite figure, which was shown off to the greatest advantage by a pretty autumn toilette. He seemed to realise for the first time how beautiful his cousin was, and he could quite understand why she so plainly attracted the notice of the gaily-dressed crowds that thronged the walks, and why several riders as they trotted past turned in their saddles. Ferdinanda did not seem to observe it; the large eyes looked straight before her, or were raised with a tired dreamy look to the branches of the trees, which seemed tired and dreamy, too, as they drank in unmoved the mild warmth of the autumn sunshine. Perhaps it was this connection of ideas which made Reinhold ask himself about what age the beautiful girl might be? and he was rather astonished when he calculated that she could not be far from four and twenty. She had always lived in his memory as a tall thin girl, not yet blossomed into flower, but then certainly that was ten years ago. His cousin Philip, who was then a long lanky youth, must now be very nearly thirty.
A light two-wheeled carriage that had been following them now overtook them.
On the high driving-seat sat a tall, fine, broad-shouldered man, well, and it struck Reinhold rather over dressed, driving a pair of remarkably fine high-stepping black horses with his hands encased in light kid gloves, and a little groom on the back seat with folded arms. The driver had to get out of the way of a carriage that was coming towards him. His attention was turned to the other side of the road, but when he was some carriage-lengths off he leaned over his seat and eagerly waved his hand and whip, to which Ferdinanda replied in her usual careless way with a nod.
“Who was that?” asked Reinhold.
“My brother Philip.”
“How strange!”
“What?”
“I was just thinking of him.”
“That often happens, particularly in a big town and at the hour when everyone is out. I shall not be surprised if we see him again at the Exhibition. Philip is a great lover of pictures, and draws and paints by no means badly. There, he has stopped! I thought so. Philip has good manners.”
The next moment they were side by side with the phaeton.
“Good morning, Ferdinanda! good morning, Reinhold! I bless the light which showed me how to light on you the very first day! Bad pun that, Ferdinanda—eh? You look uncommonly well, my dear cousin, with your brown face and beard; and you need not be ashamed of the lady by your side either—eh? Where are you off to? The Exhibition? That is capital; we shall meet. That horse is like a mad thing today. Au revoir!”
He touched with his whip the black horses, who were already beginning to fidget, and drove quickly off, again nodding over his broad shoulders.
“I should not have known Philip again,” said Reinhold; “he is not like you—I mean not like you or my uncle.”
In fact, a greater contrast could hardly be imagined than between the big red beardless smooth face of the young man with his short hair, and the deeply-lined face of Uncle Ernst, surrounded and surmounted with its grey beard and hair, or the refined and unusual beauty of Ferdinanda.
“Lucky for him,” said Ferdinanda.
“Why lucky?”
“He is what he looks, a man of the day; we are ghosts of the middle ages. Consequently it is he who is looked upon as the ghost amongst us; but it is not his fault.”
“Then in this terrible rupture between him and my uncle you take his side?”
“We are not asked our opinion at home; you will see that by-and-by.”
“I can do that now,” thought Reinhold, as Ferdinanda again sank back amongst the cushions. “Ghosts, however, are not my favourite companions, particularly on such a bright sunny day. There are so many lovable people in the world—sweet Cilli, for instance. Whatever a man expects he finds.”
As though he wished in all haste to make up this morning for any previous neglect, he now tried to fix his thoughts upon the image which he imagined was always present to his mind, but which now he could not call up before his eyes.
“That is all the fault of these crowds,” said he angrily.
And certainly they were in a very disagreeable crowd. A regiment with its noisy band was marching down the Friedrichstrasse, cutting across under the trees. The stream of passersby stood back on both sides, especially near the carriage. Police, mounted and on foot, tried to keep order amongst them with right goodwill, and to keep back the crowds which occasionally expressed
