The state dinner, prepared with lavish expense and on a most luxurious
scale, was over at last. It had procured for Berkow one special
triumph, independently of the pleasure he must have felt at seeing how
numerous were the guests around him. The nobility of the neighbouring
town, and its leading personages in particular, had always been
exclusive to the last degree. No member of it had condescended as yet
to enter the house of a parvenu, whose equivocal antecedents still shut
him out from the highest circles of society; but the invitations
bearing the name of Eugenie Berkow, _nee_ Baroness Windeg, had been
universally accepted. She was, and would ever remain, a scion of one of
the most ancient and noble houses of the land.
No one could or would wound her by a refusal, more especially as it had
not remained a secret how she had been forced into this union. But,
if the bride were to be met with fullest esteem and sympathy, her
father-in-law, in whose house the dinner was given, could not possibly
be treated otherwise than with politeness, and so this too came to
pass.
Berkow was jubilant; he knew well that this was only the prelude to
what must happen in the capital next winter. The Baroness Windeg would
certainly not be allowed to fall out of her sphere because she had
sacrificed herself to filial love. She would now, as hitherto, be
looked on as an equal in spite of the plebeian name she bore. And
touching this name, too, the object for which he had so long striven
lay now, as he hoped, almost within his grasp.
But if, on the one hand, the ambitious millionaire felt that he owed
his daughter-in-law some thanks, notwithstanding that she had on this
day more than ever assumed the airs of a princess, and had held herself
completely aloof from him and his, the behaviour of his son, on the
other hand, surprised as much as it angered him. Arthur, who had been
in the habit of associating exclusively with people of rank, seemed all
at once to have lost all taste for such company. He was so extremely
cool in his politeness towards his distinguished guests, he even
maintained so studied a reserve towards the officers of the garrison,
with whom, on previous visits, he had always been on a familiar
footing, that he more than once approached those bounds which a host
cannot overstep without giving offence. Berkow could not understand
this new whim. What could possess his son? Did he want to show his
opposition to his wife by thus obviously avoiding her guests?
Those gentlemen from the town, who had ladies under their escort,
started early on their return-journey, for the long rains had made the
roads almost impracticable, and a drive of several hours in the
darkness was not a thing to be desired. This gave the mistress of the
house liberty to withdraw, and Eugenie at once availed herself of it,
leaving the reception-rooms and retiring to her own private apartments,
while her husband and his father stayed with the remaining visitors.
At the appointed hour, Ulric Hartmann made his appearance. Since his
early childhood, since Frau Berkow's death, when his parents' relations
with the great house had altogether ceased, he had not been within its
walls. Indeed, the master's chateau, with its surrounding terraces and
gardens, was to the whole working-population a closed Eldorado, into
which even the officials only gained occasional access when called
thither by some weighty matter of business, or by a special invitation.
The young man walked through the lofty hall, lined on each side by
flowering plants, up the carpeted stairs, and through the well-lighted
corridors, until in one of the latter, he was received by the servant
who had brought him the message in the morning. The man showed him into
a room, saying:
"Her ladyship will be here directly," and, with this observation, shut
the door and left him alone.
Ulric looked round the large handsomely decorated ante-room, the first
of a long suite of apartments, all of which were now completely empty.
The guests were still assembled in the distant dining-room which looked
out on the garden, but the emptiness and stillness of this part of the
house made its splendour yet more impressive. The _portieres_ were all
drawn back, and Ulric could see through the long suite of handsome
rooms, each one of which seemed to surpass the others in beauty.
The thick, dark-coloured velvet of the carpets drank in the light, so
to speak; but it shone all the brighter on the richly gilt decorations
of the walls and doors, on the silk and satin furniture, in the tall
mirrors which reached to the ceiling and cast forth the reflection of
it in a thousand brilliant rays, yes, even on the waxed floors bright
and smooth as glass; it set off to fuller advantage those pictures,
statues and priceless vases with which the salons were so profusely
ornamented. All that wealth and luxury can give was here brought
together, and the effect was one which might well dazzle an eye
accustomed to obscurity, and most at home in the dark mazes of the
mine.
But the sight, though it would certainly have been confusing to any of
his comrades, appeared to make no impression on Ulric. His look glanced
darkly through the sparkling vista, but there was no admiration to be
traced in it. Each costly thing which drew his attention seemed to
rouse up within him a feeling of enmity, and he suddenly turned his
back on the glittering perspective, and gave a little vehement stamp
with his foot on finding that there were no signs of any one as yet.
Ulric Hartmann, clearly, was not the man to wait patiently in an
anteroom until such time as he could be conveniently received.
At last something rustled behind him; he turned round and took a step
back involuntarily, for a few paces from him, just under the great
chandelier, stood Eugenie Berkow. Up to this time he had seen her but
once, on the day he had carried her from the carriage, and she then
wore a travelling-dress of dark silk, whilst her face was shaded by her
hat and veil. Of that meeting he had preserved only one remembrance,
that of the great dark eyes which had scanned his countenance so
closely.
Now--ah yes, indeed! this was an apparition very different from any
that had hitherto come within the young miner's sphere of vision. Over
the white silk dress flowed a delicate white lace, which waved like a
cloudlet round her tall and slender figure. Into these airy folds some
roses seemed to have been wafted, and a wreath of roses encircled her
blonde head, the shining tresses of which rivalled in their soft
brilliancy the pearls about her neck and arms. The blaze of the
wax-lights fell full on this lovely picture so fitly framed by its
surroundings. As she stood there, it seemed as though nothing ought to
approach her which had anything in common with the ordinary life of
this work-a-day world.
But although Eugenie's whole appearance might betoken the high-born
lady of fashion, that being the role which she had this evening
exclusively played--her eyes showed plainly that she could be something
else too. They lighted up now with a glad expression, as she caught
sight of the young man, and she went up to him with quiet friendliness.
"I am pleased that you came when I sent for you. I wanted to speak to
you to clear up a misunderstanding. Come with me."
She opened one of the side doors, and entered the adjoining room,
followed by Ulric. It was her own boudoir, and separated her apartments
beyond from the suite before mentioned--but what a contrast it was to
the latter! Here only a mellowed light streamed from the lamp over the
tender blue draperies and hangings. The foot, bold enough there to
tread, sank silently into the yielding carpet, and the caressing air
was warm and balmy with the scent of flowers.
Ulric stood on the threshold as if spell-bound, though he was in
general but little used to fits of shyness. Here all was so different
to the dazzling rooms he had left, so much more beautiful, so dreamily
still. The wrath with which he had looked on all that splendour had
gone out from him; in its place there stirred a something which he
could not define, a something born of the gentler influences now so
strangely surrounding him. But in the next minute a hot anger at this
weakness burned up within him, he drew back instinctively as from some
vaguely-felt danger, and his whole being rose up in inflexible
hostility to this atmosphere of beauty and fragrance with all its
seductive charm.
Eugenie stopped, noticing with some surprise that the miner was not
following her. She took a seat near the door, and her eyes scrutinised
his face narrowly. The curly light hair entirely covered the still
fresh scar, and the wound, which might well have proved dangerous to
another man, had had but little effect on this powerful frame. Eugenie
sought for some trace of past suffering, but found none. Her first
question related, however, to his injury.
"So you have quite recovered? Does the wound really give you no pain
now?"
"No, my lady, it was not worth speaking about."
Eugenie did not appear to remark the short ungracious tone of the
answer. She continued, speaking with the same kindness.
"I heard, certainly, from the Director's mouth on the very next day
that there was nothing to be apprehended, or we should have had you
more thoroughly cared for. After his second visit to you, the Director
assured me again that there was no question of any danger, and Herr
Wilberg, whom I sent to your house on the day after the accident,
brought me the same report."
At the first words of her little speech Ulric had raised his eyes and
fixed them on her face. His moody brow cleared slowly, and his voice
had a gentler sound as he answered,
"I did not know, my lady, that you had troubled yourself so much about
it. Herr Wilberg did not tell me he came from you, or"----
"Or you would have been rather more friendly to him," concluded
Eugenie, a little reproachfully. "He complained of the brusque way in
which you treated him that evening, yet he was so full of sympathy for
you, and offered with such cheerful alacrity to procure me the news I
wished for. What do you object to in Herr Wilberg?"
"Nothing--but he plays on the guitar and writes poetry."
"That does not seem to be any special advantage in your eyes," said
she, half-jesting; "and I hardly think you would be guilty of it, if
you were to change places with him. But we will leave that! It was for
something else I sent for you. I hear," she played in rather an
embarrassed way with her fan, "I hear from the Director that you have
declined a mark of our gratitude, which he was commissioned to offer
you from us."
"Yes," Ulric assented briefly, without adding one word to soften the
harsh monosyllable.
"I am sorry if the offer, or the way in which it was made, has offended
you. Herr Berkow,"--a faint flush overspread Eugenie's face as she
uttered the untruth--"Herr Berkow certainly intended personally to
express to you his thanks and mine. He was prevented from doing so, and
therefore begged the Director to represent him. It would grieve me much
if you were to see in that any proof of ingratitude or indifference on
our part towards our deliverer. We both know how deeply we are in your
debt, and you would hardly now refuse me too, if I were to beg you to
receive from my hands"----
Ulric started up; the happy influence of her first words had been quite
destroyed by the close of her speech. His face had grown pale, when he
guessed what was her object, and he broke out recklessly,
"Let that matter be, my lady. If you offer me money, you too, I shall
wish I had let the carriage go over with all that was in it!"
Eugenie was a little startled by this outbreak of that savage wildness
for which Ulric Hartmann was feared by every one about the works. Such
a look and such a tone had certainly never been addressed to Baron
Windegs daughter; it was indeed the first time she had been brought in
contact with one belonging to the working classes. She rose offended.
"I do not wish to impose my thanks upon you. If the expression of them
displeases you so much, I regret that I should have called you hither."
She turned away and was about to leave the room, but the movement
brought Ulric to his senses. He took one hasty step forwards.
"My lady--I--forgive me! I would not vex _you_ for the world!"
Eugenie was struck by the passionate, remorseful tone. She stopped and
looked at him, seeking in his face for the key to his strange conduct;
but his vehement cry for pardon had disarmed her.
"You would not vex _me_?" she repeated, "but you do not mind how much
you hurt other people's feelings by your ungracious ways? The
Director's, for instance, and Herr Wilberg's?"
"No, I do not," returned Ulric, "no more than they would mind hurting
mine, if the case were reversed. There is no talk of friendliness
between the officials and us."
"No?" asked Eugenie in surprise. "I did not know that the officials and
the hands were on such bad terms, and Herr Berkow cannot suspect it
either, or he would assuredly have tried to mediate."
"Herr Berkow," said Ulric, sharply, "has cared during the last twenty
years for every possible thing on the works, except for the welfare of
the hands employed, and so it will go on, until we begin caring a
little about him, and then--oh, my lady! I was forgetting that you are
his son's wife. Forgive me!"
She was silent, a little confounded by his reckless plain-speaking.
What she now heard was, in truth, only what had often before been
hinted in her presence about her father-in-law, but the terrible
bitterness of these words made her feel all the depth of the gulf which
lay between him and his subordinates. Whoever brought an accusation
against Berkow was sure beforehand of having his daughter-in-law's
sympathy. Eugenie had herself had bitter proof of his unscrupulousness,
but she was sensible that, as his son's wife, she ought not to make
this evident. If she noticed Hartmann's last speech at all, it must be
to reprove him, and she preferred to let it pass.
"So you will not accept any mark of our gratitude, not even from my
hands?" she began again, waiving the dangerous subject. "Well, then, I
can do nothing but tender my thanks to the man who saved me from
certain death. Will you reject them, too? I thank you, Hartmann!"
She held out her hand to him. It lay only a few seconds, white and
delicate as a flower, in the miner's strong work-hardened palm, but its
touch sent a quiver through him. All the bitterness went out of his
face, the threatening look from his eyes; the defiant head was bent
over her outstretched hand, and his features bore an expression of
gentleness and submissiveness, which none of his superiors could ever
boast of having seen on Ulric Hartmann's countenance.
"Oh, you are giving audience here, Eugenie, and to one of our people!"
Berkow's voice sounded behind them, as he opened the door at this
moment, and came in, accompanied by his son. Eugenie drew back her hand
and Ulric stood up erect. As those tones met his ear, he resumed his
characteristic attitude of silent hostility, which became even more
marked, as Arthur exclaimed, with a sharpness, oddly contrasting with
his habitual languid manner,
"Hartmann, how do you come here?"
"Hartmann?" repeated Berkow, attracted by the name, and going up
nearer. "Oh, here we have our friend the agitator, who"----
"Who stopped our horses when they were running away in their mad
fright, and who was injured himself in saving our lives!" put in
Eugenie, quietly, but very decidedly.
"Ah, yes!" said Berkow, disconcerted by this reminder, and by his
daughter-in-law's resolute look. "Yes, indeed, I heard of it, and the
Director was telling me that you and Arthur had already given a proof
of your sense of the obligation. The young man has come, no doubt, to
express his thanks. I hope you were satisfied, Hartmann?"
The cloud rolled back on Ulric's brow blacker and more menacing than
ever, and the reply, which hovered on his lips, would probably have
brought down on him the most serious consequences. Eugenie stepped up
to her protege and touched him lightly on the arm with her fan. The
miner understood the warning; he looked at her, saw the unconcealed
anxiety in her eyes, and his hatred and defiance gave way once more. He
answered quietly, almost coldly:
"Certainly, Herr Berkow, I am satisfied with her ladyship's thanks."
"I am glad of it," said Berkow, shortly.
Ulric turned to Eugenie.
"I can go now, my lady?"
She bowed her head in silent assent. She saw but too plainly what
constraint the man had to put on himself in order to remain quiet. With
one slight movement of the head directed to the master and his son, a
salutation evidently bestowed with much reluctance, he left the room.
"Well, I must confess that your protege has not very good manners,"
remarked Berkow, with a sneer. "He takes leave in rather an off-hand
way, and does not wait to be dismissed. But there, how can such people
learn the proper way to behave! Arthur, you seem to find something
remarkably interesting in this Hartmann. I hope you have looked after
him long enough?"
Arthur's eyes had indeed followed the miner with an intent gaze, and
they were still fixed on the door he had closed behind him. The young
man's eyebrows were drawn together slightly, and his lips firmly set.
At his father's remark, he turned round.
The latter went up to his daughter-in-law, with a great show of
politeness.
"I regret, Eugenie, that your complete ignorance of the state of things
here should have led you to an act of excessive condescension. You,
naturally, could have no idea of the part that fellow plays among his
comrades, but he should, on no account, have been permitted to come to
this house, much less to enter your boudoir, even under the pretext of
returning thanks for a present."
The lady had seated herself, but there was a look on her face which
made it seem advisable to her father-in-law to remain standing, instead
of taking a place at her side as he at first intended. She compelled
him too "to admire her only from a distance."
"I see they have only told you half the story," she answered, coolly.
"May I ask when you last spoke to the Director?"
"This morning, when I learned from him that he had been commissioned to
hand over to Hartmann a sum, which I, by the way, consider much too
large. It is quite a fortune to such people! But I do not wish to lay
any restrictions on you and Arthur, if you think it right to show your
gratitude in this exaggerated way."
"So you do not know that the young man has refused the money
altogether?"
"Re--refused?" cried Berkow, starting back.
"Refused?" repeated Arthur. "Why?"
"Probably because it offended him to be put off with a sum of money
offered through a third person, while those whom he had saved did not
think it worth their while to add even a word of thanks. I have made
good this latter negligence, but I could not persuade him to accept the
smallest thing. It does not seem as though the Director had managed the
matter so 'admirably.'"
Arthur bit his lip. He knew these words were meant for him, though they
were spoken to his father.
"It appears, then, you sent for him yourself?" he asked.
"Certainly."
"I wish you had left it undone," said Berkow, somewhat irritated. "This
Hartmann is pointed out to me on all sides as the chief promoter of
that revolutionary spirit which I am about to meet with the utmost
severity. I see now that too much has not been said about him. If this
fellow dares to refuse such a sum, because it has not been paid to him
with all the ceremony his mightiness demands, he may well be capable of
anything. I must remind you, Eugenie, that there are certain
considerations my daughter-in-law must keep in mind even when she is
giving a proof of her kind feeling."
The old contemptuous look played about Eugenie's lips. Remembering the
compulsion to which she had been subjected, she felt but little
disposed to yield to her father-in-law's wishes, and the bitter thought
of it rising within her made her overlook the real justice of what he
said.
"I am sorry, Herr Berkow," she answered, icily, "that other
considerations must have weight with me besides any your
daughter-in-law may be bound to regard. This was an exceptional case,
and you must allow me to act on my own judgment in such matters both
now and for the future."
She was again every inch the Baroness Windeg, as she thus recalled the
plebeian millionaire to his place; but whether the cause of dispute had
angered him too much, or whether the wine, which had flowed so freely
at dinner, had produced some little effect on him, he did not this time
show her the same boundless respect, but answered with some heat,
"Really? Well, then, I shall thank you to remember,"----but he got no
further in his speech, for Arthur, who had remained in the background
so far, taking no part in the conversation, stood up all at once at his
wife's side, and said quietly,
"I must beg you, sir, to put an end to this unpleasant discussion.--I
have left Eugenie unlimited freedom of action, and I do not wish that
any one else should attempt to restrain it."
Berkow looked at his son as though he had not heard aright. He was
accustomed to see Arthur display the most passive indifference on all
occasions, great and small, and was as much surprised by his son's
interference as by this open championship.
"You seem to have quite gone over to the opposition to-day," he
returned in a jesting tone. "I shall do well to beat a retreat before
such combined forces, particularly as I have some business matters to
attend to still. I hope I may find you rather less disposed to quarrel
to-morrow, Eugenie; and you, Arthur, somewhat more tractable than you
have shown yourself to-day. I wish you both a good evening."