The De Stancys and Powers remained in Heidelberg for some days. All
remarked that after Somerset’s departure Paula was frequently irritable,
though at other times as serene as ever. Yet even when in a blithe and
saucy mood there was at bottom a tinge of melancholy. Something did not
lie easy in her undemonstrative heart, and all her friends excused the
inequalities of a humour whose source, though not positively known,
could be fairly well guessed.
De Stancy had long since discovered that his chance lay chiefly in
her recently acquired and fanciful predilection d’artiste for hoary
mediaeval families with ancestors in alabaster and primogenitive renown.
Seeing this he dwelt on those topics which brought out that aspect of
himself more clearly, talking feudalism and chivalry with a zest that
he had never hitherto shown. Yet it was not altogether factitious.
For, discovering how much this quondam Puritan was interested in the
attributes of long-chronicled houses, a reflected interest in himself
arose in his own soul, and he began to wonder why he had not prized
these things before. Till now disgusted by the failure of his family to
hold its own in the turmoil between ancient and modern, he had grown to
undervalue its past prestige; and it was with corrective ardour that he
adopted while he ministered to her views.
Henceforward the wooing of De Stancy took the form of an intermittent
address, the incidents of their travel furnishing pegs whereon to hang
his subject; sometimes hindering it, but seldom failing to produce in
her a greater tolerance of his presence. His next opportunity was the
day after Somerset’s departure from Heidelberg. They stood on the great
terrace of the Schloss-Garten, looking across the intervening ravine
to the north-east front of the castle which rose before them in all its
customary warm tints and battered magnificence.
‘This is a spot, if any, which should bring matters to a crisis between
you and me,’ he asserted good-humouredly. ‘But you have been so silent
to-day that I lose the spirit to take advantage of my privilege.’
She inquired what privilege he spoke of, as if quite another subject had
been in her mind than De Stancy.
‘The privilege of winning your heart if I can, which you gave me at
Carlsruhe.’
‘O,’ she said. ‘Well, I’ve been thinking of that. But I do not feel
myself absolutely bound by the statement I made in that room; and I
shall expect, if I withdraw it, not to be called to account by you.’
De Stancy looked rather blank.
‘If you recede from your promise you will doubtless have good reason.
But I must solemnly beg you, after raising my hopes, to keep as near as
you can to your word, so as not to throw me into utter despair.’
Paula dropped her glance into the Thier-Garten below them, where gay
promenaders were clambering up between the bushes and flowers. At length
she said, with evident embarrassment, but with much distinctness: ‘I
deserve much more blame for what I have done than you can express to me.
I will confess to you the whole truth. All that I told you in the hotel
at Carlsruhe was said in a moment of pique at what had happened just
before you came in. It was supposed I was much involved with another
man, and circumstances made the supposition particularly objectionable.
To escape it I jumped at the alternative of yourself.’
‘That’s bad for me!’ he murmured.
‘If after this avowal you bind me to my words I shall say no more: I do
not wish to recede from them without your full permission.’
‘What a caprice! But I release you unconditionally,’ he said. ‘And I beg
your pardon if I seemed to show too much assurance. Please put it down
to my gratified excitement. I entirely acquiesce in your wish. I will go
away to whatever place you please, and not come near you but by your own
permission, and till you are quite satisfied that my presence and what
it may lead to is not undesirable. I entirely give way before you, and
will endeavour to make my future devotedness, if ever we meet again, a
new ground for expecting your favour.’
Paula seemed struck by the generous and cheerful fairness of his
remarks, and said gently, ‘Perhaps your departure is not absolutely
necessary for my happiness; and I do not wish from what you call
caprice--’
‘I retract that word.’
‘Well, whatever it is, I don’t wish you to do anything which should
cause you real pain, or trouble, or humiliation.’
‘That’s very good of you.’
‘But I reserve to myself the right to accept or refuse your
addresses--just as if those rash words of mine had never been spoken.’
‘I must bear it all as best I can, I suppose,’ said De Stancy, with
melancholy humorousness.
‘And I shall treat you as your behaviour shall seem to deserve,’ she
said playfully.
‘Then I may stay?’
‘Yes; I am willing to give you that pleasure, if it is one, in return
for the attentions you have shown, and the trouble you have taken to
make my journey pleasant.’
She walked on and discovered Mrs. Goodman near, and presently the whole
party met together. De Stancy did not find himself again at her side
till later in the afternoon, when they had left the immediate precincts
of the castle and decided on a drive to the Konigsstuhl.
The carriage, containing only Mrs. Goodman, was driven a short way up
the winding incline, Paula, her uncle, and Miss De Stancy walking behind
under the shadow of the trees. Then Mrs. Goodman called to them and
asked when they were going to join her.
‘We are going to walk up,’ said Mr. Power.
Paula seemed seized with a spirit of boisterousness quite unlike her
usual behaviour. ‘My aunt may drive up, and you may walk up; but I
shall run up,’ she said. ‘See, here’s a way.’ She tripped towards a path
through the bushes which, instead of winding like the regular track,
made straight for the summit.
Paula had not the remotest conception of the actual distance to the top,
imagining it to be but a couple of hundred yards at the outside, whereas
it was really nearer a mile, the ascent being uniformly steep all the
way. When her uncle and De Stancy had seen her vanish they stood
still, the former evidently reluctant to forsake the easy ascent for a
difficult one, though he said, ‘We can’t let her go alone that way, I
suppose.’
‘No, of course not,’ said De Stancy.
They then followed in the direction taken by Paula, Charlotte entering
the carriage. When Power and De Stancy had ascended about fifty yards
the former looked back, and dropped off from the pursuit, to return to
the easy route, giving his companion a parting hint concerning Paula.
Whereupon De Stancy went on alone. He soon saw Paula above him in the
path, which ascended skyward straight as Jacob’s Ladder, but was so
overhung by the brushwood as to be quite shut out from the sun. When he
reached her side she was moving easily upward, apparently enjoying the
seclusion which the place afforded.
‘Is not my uncle with you?’ she said, on turning and seeing him.
‘He went back,’ said De Stancy.
She replied that it was of no consequence; that she should meet him at
the top, she supposed.
Paula looked up amid the green light which filtered through the leafage
as far as her eyes could stretch. But the top did not appear, and she
allowed De Stancy to get in front. ‘It did not seem such a long way as
this, to look at,’ she presently said.
He explained that the trees had deceived her as to the real height, by
reason of her seeing the slope foreshortened when she looked up from the
castle. ‘Allow me to help you,’ he added.
‘No, thank you,’ said Paula lightly; ‘we must be near the top.’
They went on again; but no Konigsstuhl. When next De Stancy turned he
found that she was sitting down; immediately going back he offered his
arm. She took it in silence, declaring that it was no wonder her uncle
did not come that wearisome way, if he had ever been there before.
De Stancy did not explain that Mr. Power had said to him at parting,
‘There’s a chance for you, if you want one,’ but at once went on with
the subject begun on the terrace. ‘If my behaviour is good, you will
reaffirm the statement made at Carlsruhe?’
‘It is not fair to begin that now!’ expostulated Paula; ‘I can only
think of getting to the top.’
Her colour deepening by the exertion, he suggested that she should sit
down again on one of the mossy boulders by the wayside. Nothing loth she
did, De Stancy standing by, and with his cane scratching the moss from
the stone.
‘This is rather awkward,’ said Paula, in her usual circumspect way. ‘My
relatives and your sister will be sure to suspect me of having arranged
this scramble with you.’
‘But I know better,’ sighed De Stancy. ‘I wish to Heaven you had
arranged it!’
She was not at the top, but she took advantage of the halt to answer his
previous question. ‘There are many points on which I must be satisfied
before I can reaffirm anything. Do you not see that you are mistaken
in clinging to this idea?--that you are laying up mortification and
disappointment for yourself?’
‘A negative reply from you would be disappointment, early or late.’
‘And you prefer having it late to accepting it now? If I were a man, I
should like to abandon a false scent as soon as possible.’
‘I suppose all that has but one meaning: that I am to go.’
‘O no,’ she magnanimously assured him, bounding up from her seat; ‘I
adhere to my statement that you may stay; though it is true something
may possibly happen to make me alter my mind.’
He again offered his arm, and from sheer necessity she leant upon it as
before.
‘Grant me but a moment’s patience,’ he began.
‘Captain De Stancy! Is this fair? I am physically obliged to hold your
arm, so that I MUST listen to what you say!’
‘No, it is not fair; ‘pon my soul it is not!’ said De Stancy. ‘I won’t
say another word.’
He did not; and they clambered on through the boughs, nothing disturbing
the solitude but the rustle of their own footsteps and the singing of
birds overhead. They occasionally got a peep at the sky; and whenever a
twig hung out in a position to strike Paula’s face the gallant captain
bent it aside with his stick. But she did not thank him. Perhaps he was
just as well satisfied as if she had done so.
Paula, panting, broke the silence: ‘Will you go on, and discover if the
top is near?’
He went on. This time the top was near. When he returned she was sitting
where he had left her among the leaves. ‘It is quite near now,’ he told
her tenderly, and she took his arm again without a word. Soon the path
changed its nature from a steep and rugged watercourse to a level green
promenade.
‘Thank you, Captain De Stancy,’ she said, letting go his arm as if
relieved.
Before them rose the tower, and at the base they beheld two of their
friends, Mr. Power being seen above, looking over the parapet through
his glass.
‘You will go to the top now?’ said De Stancy.
‘No, I take no interest in it. My interest has turned to fatigue. I only
want to go home.’
He took her on to where the carriage stood at the foot of the tower,
and leaving her with his sister ascended the turret to the top. The
landscape had quite changed from its afternoon appearance, and had
become rather marvellous than beautiful. The air was charged with a
lurid exhalation that blurred the extensive view. He could see the
distant Rhine at its junction with the Neckar, shining like a thread
of blood through the mist which was gradually wrapping up the declining
sun. The scene had in it something that was more than melancholy,
and not much less than tragic; but for De Stancy such evening effects
possessed little meaning. He was engaged in an enterprise that taxed all
his resources, and had no sentiments to spare for air, earth, or skies.
‘Remarkable scene,’ said Power, mildly, at his elbow.
‘Yes; I dare say it is,’ said De Stancy. ‘Time has been when I should
have held forth upon such a prospect, and wondered if its livid colours
shadowed out my own life, et caetera, et caetera. But, begad, I have
almost forgotten there’s such a thing as Nature, and I care for nothing
but a comfortable life, and a certain woman who does not care for me!...
Now shall we go down?’