Elsa was stooping over the trellis which ran along the wall between the two great elm-trees.
“And Captain Schmidt, has he refused?”
“I did not send him the invitation, my dear child.”
“You did not send it!”
Elsa started up quickly; her expressive face showed surprise and annoyance.
“How can you excite yourself so over such a trifle, my dear child? It occurred to me, just as I was giving the letters to August, that we are going to give another party in a few weeks, to which we must invite Major Müller and some of that set; the Captain can be asked with them.”
“But why should he be!” exclaimed Elsa; “I remember that evening at Golmberg, when, without intending it, he was almost the only speaker at the table, and gave Count Golm besides a lesson which it is to be hoped he has not forgotten.”
“That is exactly what decided me,” said Sidonie; “just that warm discussion which you and your papa told me of between the two gentlemen—the two gentlemen, you hear, Elsa, I make no distinction of rank. We are giving a party in honour of the Count, and as a return for the civilities he showed you. Would it be courteous, would it be becoming, to invite at the same time a gentleman—mark that, Elsa—a gentleman with whom he has had at his own table—tranchons le mot!—an altercation!”
“But he deserved the lesson.”
“And I suppose is to have a repetition of it here.”
“That he certainly will not. Captain Schmidt is courtesy itself.”
Sidonie stopped in her walk, her good-natured eyes looked almost sharply into Elsa’s face, which was flushed with the warmth of the dispute.
“If I could not see into your heart, Elsa, as clearly as in a looking-glass, I really should not know how to explain the perverseness which leads you to praise the courtesy of a simple merchant-captain at the expense of your aunt’s. Child, child, do not you bring sorrow on your dear papa, who already takes such a gloomy view of life; and on your aunt, who lives only for her ‘Court Etiquette’ and for you.”
“I do not understand what you mean, aunt,” answered Elsa, blushing up to the roots of her hair.
“Nor I either, thank God,” answered Sidonie, wiping her eyes; “only I get so anxious when I see your papa so out of spirits, as he was this morning when he gave me Aunt Valerie’s letter; he never answers her letters himself, although this last one is really so touchingly humble, that I shall find it very difficult to be severe with her again.”
“How can one be severe with a person who is so unhappy as you say Aunt Valerie is?”
“Child, you cannot understand,” answered Sidonie; “you must trust to your papa and me. There are things which can never be forgiven.”
“Not even if one is sorry for them, as Aunt Valerie evidently is? Is it only a brother who is to be forgiven until seventy times seven, and not a sister also?”
This was another of Elsa’s terrible ideas which Sidonie did not know how to meet. Her kind eyes looked around as if seeking for help, and rested at last on the trellis, where they wandered up and down.
“At last I have got it into order,” she exclaimed: “see, Elsa, for the last three days the bed has not been trodden down nor the leaves torn off the trellis. It is only a wild vine, but it was beginning to look so pretty; August swore he did not do it; but how can one believe people? Well, I have gained my object.”
“It is wonderfully quiet over there today,” said Elsa.
“I wish to heaven it were always so,” answered the aunt.
“Even the manufactory chimney is not smoking,” continued Elsa. “Good heavens! I have only just remarked it. I hope no misfortune has happened! Have you heard anything, August!”
August, who came to call the ladies to breakfast, was astonished that the ladies had not heard of it. “Herr Schmidt had dismissed twenty or thirty men last Thursday, because they—with respect be it said—were Socialists and Communists; and the rest, who are not much better, seized the opportunity and demanded from Herr Schmidt enormous wages. Well, Herr Schmidt of course turned off the ringleaders, and they came back with the others in great crowds to murder Herr Schmidt, when the Captain, who was at Golmberg with the General and Fräulein Elsa, stood in the doorway and—did you not see?—pulled out a pair of pistols; and they all took to their heels and went on strike, as they call it, when they do not work, and drink schnaps. Since yesterday evening there has not been so much as a cat in the entire building, and the workmen at the other marble-works have also struck, to keep them company. And they say it will cost Herr Schmidt several thousand thalers a day, and that he will soon have to give in; but I don’t believe that, for Herr Schmidt, as the ladies know, is A 1.”
“Shocking!” said Sidonie, shaking her head; “such near neighbours! I warned your papa when he bought the house. It really is not safe. And people like that are to be invited!”
Elsa did not answer. When the servant mentioned Reinhold, her telltale heart beat rapidly, and she had involuntarily felt for the compass which, since their last meeting at the Exhibition, she had always carried in her pocket, that she might return it to him at the first opportunity. Her aunt’s observation had filled her with speechless indignation. But when, a few minutes later, she sat opposite to her father at the breakfast-table, she asked him, to Sidonie’s great dismay, without further preparation, if he had heard what had happened to the Schmidts; and that Herr Schmidt and the Captain had been apparently in danger of their lives; and should not Ottomar go today and return the Captain’s visit, the rather that her aunt had postponed to
