"I cannot make out the surname."
She passed the letter to Bertram, who was sitting on her right.
"Well," said the Baron, on her left, "she would seem to be a Russian,
anyhow."
"No doubt of that. Well, my friend?"
"No," replied Bertram, "I cannot make it out."
"Will you allow me?" said the Baron.
Bertram handed the letter back to Hildegard, who passed it on to the
Baron.
"Why," he exclaimed, "it is quite plain, Bo--Bo!" He paused.
"Bo, Bo, Bo!" laughed Lydia. "Let me try."
But Lydia failed too; the note was passed round the table; Otto and
Agatha tried and failed; Erna passed it on to Bertram without casting
one glance at it.
"Will you not try?" asked Bertram.
"No."
She uttered this so sharply that Bertram looked up terrified.
"How very unkind," said her mother.
Bertram had the same impression at first, but he knew Erna too well;
there was assuredly something else going on in her mind, something
which had tried to find expression in the abrupt No. She was very pale,
and had pressed her teeth against her under lip, whilst her eyes looked
gloomily and fixedly straight in front of her. One might have expected
her to burst into a flood of tears the next moment. To turn the
attention of the rest from her, and also to overcome his own feelings
of uneasiness, he began once more diligently to spell away at the
signature, and suddenly exclaimed--
"I have got it, I think--Volinzov--Alexandra Paulovna Volinzov!"
"Let me see, please?" exclaimed Hildegard. "Really, Volinzov; and quite
plain too. How blind we have been! Dear me, Herr Baron, what is the
matter with you?"
"I beg a thousand pardons," said the Baron from behind his
handkerchief, which he held pressed to his face, rising from the table
as he spoke, and swiftly withdrawing from the room.
Hildegard looked sadly after his retreating figure.
"Poor fellow!" she said, "I am so sorry. He is in a terrible state of
excitement. And now, in addition, this home news--if I only knew what
it is all about, but he is discretion personified."
Bertram, still pondering over Erna's strange demeanour, had almost
mechanically cast his eye over the whole letter, and only became
conscious of this on coming to a passage which he did not remember
having heard in Hildegard's translation.
"Here," he said, "is one line, my fair friend, which has escaped you,
and which yet strikes me as important. Listen: 'thorough egotist who
has the courage to follow her letter at once, and has the honour,' &c."
"Impossible!" exclaimed Hildegard.
"There it stands; see for yourself. You passed from the last line but
two on to the last."
"Oh dear! oh dear!" exclaimed the hostess. "She will be wanting to
dine of course; and that is not the worst, but all the rooms will be
occupied by to-morrow afternoon."
"The officers must do with a little less accommodation," said Otto. "It
will be all right."
"No, it will not be all right," said his wife, "if each of them is to
have a room of his own; and we cannot put less than two each at the
disposal of the two Majors and the Colonel."
"Let me help you in your embarrassment," said Bertram. "You know, I
originally intended leaving early to-morrow, let us adhere to the old
plan; the more so, because I have just received a letter which
necessitates my very speedy return to Berlin."
"That is an excuse," exclaimed his friend.
"No excuse, my dear fellow; you may see the letter yourself. But I may
as well say what it is about. I have been selected by my political
friends for a forthcoming vacancy in the _Reichstag_."
"But you will surely not stand?"
"Indeed, I mean to do so."
"And your Italian trip?"
"Postponed to some future day."
"But your illness?"
"Thanks to your excellent nursing, I never felt better in my life."
"But it's quite out of the question!" cried Otto. "I cannot let you.
It would be downright ..."
In thus urging his friend to stay, Otto was simply following the
dictates of his own good-natured heart, without any reference to his
own special interests; now it suddenly occurred to him that his wife
had that very morning called Bertram's presence a positive misfortune,
and had accused him of standing--the one obstacle--between herself and
the execution of her favourite plan.
So he broke off abruptly, casting a sheepish, embarrassed look at his
wife.
Hildegard blushed to the very temples. Now she was obliged to urge him
to stay, if everything she had been settling during the last few days
in secret with Lydia and the Baron, and at last with her husband too,
was not to lie like an open book before Bertram, and unless there was
to be a real rupture, which, of course, it was desirable to avoid as
long as possible. In order to conceal the true reason of her blush, she
seized, as though obeying some uncontrollable impulse, both his hands,
and said--
"I am almost speechless with amazement, my friend! Otto is quite right;
the thing is impossible, it would be downright--abominable--that is
what you were going to say, is it not, dear Otto? You cannot, must not
leave us now. In a few days, if it really must be, well and good; but
not now. I have--quite apart from our own feelings--revelled in the
thought of the pleasant surprise it will be for Herr von Waldor to meet
here, upon the threshold of a strange house, an old friend of his own.
And if old friendship cannot exercise a spell over you, are you not
allured by the prospect of meeting the mysterious Russian, whose name
you alone were able to decipher, and who will not care to converse with
any one except yourself, once she has heard how beautifully you speak
French? But come--Otto, Lydia, Agatha--help me to entreat our friend to
stay."
In the general excitement, every one had risen from table, dinner being
finished anyhow, and now they were talking on the verandah. The Baron
had reappeared too, but was keeping at some little distance; he
evidently had not quite recovered from his attack. Those to whom
Hildegard had appealed by name hastened to comply with her request, and
were all urging Bertram to remain. He never heard them at all; he did
not even see them; he had eyes for Erna only.
Erna, as though she had no interest whatever in the matter under
discussion, had stepped down from the verandah to one of the
flower-plots on the lawn. Suddenly she turned, retraced her steps
slowly, ascended the verandah again, and approached him. Her cheeks--so
pale but a short time ago--were flushed now; there was a light in those
large eyes, and a defiant smile played round her dainty lips. She
fastened a beautiful red rose, just about to unfold, in his buttonhole.
"I prayed you the night you came--I pray you again: Stay! stay--for my
sake! Come, Agatha!"
She had seized her cousin by the hand, and drawn her away into the
garden; Bertram had stepped into the billiard-room, and was knocking
the balls about; the others looked at each other, amazed, embarrassed,
frightened, scornful. But, greatly though their various feelings
desired expression and exchange, and opportune though the occasion
might appear, there was no chance in the meantime. For the very next
moment the sound of a post-horn was heard coming from the great
courtyard, and announced, to Hildegard's terror, that Princess Volinzov
had interpreted her own letter literally, and had really followed it
without delay.