EXPLANATORY.
President Nordheim belonged to the class of men who owe their success
to themselves. The son of a petty official, with no means of his own,
he had educated himself as an engineer, and had lived in very narrow
circumstances until he suddenly appeared before the public with a
technical invention which attracted the attention of the entire
profession. The first mountain-railway had just been projected, and the
young, obscure engineer had devised a locomotive which could drag the
trains up the heights. The invention was as clever as it was practical;
it instantly distanced all competing devices, and was adopted by the
company, which finally purchased the patent from the inventor at a
price which then seemed a fortune to him, and which certainly laid the
foundation of his future wealth, for he took rank immediately among men
of enterprise.
Contrary to expectation, however, Nordheim did not pursue the path in
which he had made so brilliant a _debut_; strangely enough, he seemed
to lose interest in it, and adopted another, although kindred, career.
He undertook the formation and the financial conduct of a large
building association, of which in a few years he made an enormous
success, meanwhile increasing his own property tenfold.
Other projects were the consequence of this first undertaking, and with
the increase of his means the magnitude of his schemes increased, and
it became clear that this was the field for the exercise of his
talents. He was not a man to ponder and pore for years over technical
details,--he needed to plunge into the life of the age, to venture and
contrive, making all possible interests subservient to his success, and
developing in all directions his great talent for organization.
In his restless activity he never failed to select the right man for
the right place; he overcame all obstacles, sought and found sources of
help everywhere, and fortune stood his energy in stead. The enterprises
of which Nordheim was the head were sure to succeed, and while he
himself became a millionaire, his influence in all circles with which
he had any connection was incalculable.
The president's wife had died a few years since,--a loss which was not
especially felt by him, for his marriage had not been a very happy one.
He had married when he was a simple engineer, and his quiet,
unpretending wife had not known how to accommodate herself to his
growing fortunes and to play the part of _grande dame_ to her husband's
satisfaction. Then too the son which she bore him, and whom he had
hoped to make the heir of his schemes, died when an infant. Alice was
born some years afterwards, a delicate, sickly child, for whose life
the greatest anxiety was always felt, and whose phlegmatic temperament
was antagonistic to the vivid energy of her father's nature. She was
his only daughter, his future heiress, and as such he surrounded her
with every luxury that wealth could procure, but she made no part of
his life, and he was glad to intrust her education and herself to the
Baroness Lasberg.
Nordheim's only sister, who had lived beneath his roof, had bestowed
her hand upon the Freiherr von Thurgau, then a captain in the army. Her
brother, who had just achieved his first successes, would have
preferred another suitor to the last scion of an impoverished noble
family, who possessed nothing save his sword and a small estate high up
among the mountains, but, since the couple loved each other tenderly
and there was no objection to be made to Thurgau personally, the
brother's consent was not withheld.
The young people lived very modestly, but in the enjoyment of a
domestic happiness quite lacking in Nordheim's wealthy household, and
their only child, the little Erna, grew up in the broad sunshine of
love and content. Unfortunately, Thurgau lost his wife after six years
of married life, and, sensitive as he was, the unexpected blow so
crushed him that he determined to leave the army, and to retire from
the world entirely. Nordheim, whose restless ambition could not
comprehend such a resolve, combated it most earnestly, but in vain; his
brother-in-law resisted him with all the obstinacy of his nature. He
quitted the service in which he had attained the rank of major, and
retired with his daughter to Wolkenstein Court, the modest income from
which, joined to his pension, sufficing for his simple needs.
Since then there had been a certain amount of estrangement between the
brothers-in-law; the mediating influence of the wife and sister was
lacking, and in addition their homes were very wide apart. They saw
each other rarely, and letters were interchanged still more rarely
until the construction of the mountain-railway and the necessity for
purchasing Thurgau's estate brought about a meeting.