Some slight confusion was visible in young Winterfeld's face, but he quickly mastered it.
"Later on I have to pack up and make ready for my departure, and I should like to take one last look at the lake and the mountains. It is hard on me, I assure you, to go away and leave them."
"That I believe," said Max, with a peculiar and rather malicious intonation; but he relapsed into silence on meeting his friend's half-angry, half-imploring glance.
Brunnow seemed to attach no importance to the matter. He waved them a hasty farewell, and went up to his writing-table again, while the two young men strode through the garden, and, Max having opened the iron gate, struck into the footpath which ran close to the border of the lake. They went on some time in silence. George seemed grave and thoughtful, and the young surgeon was evidently in a very ill-humour, to which the recent conversation with his father and the approaching departure of his friend may have conduced in equal shares.
"So this is the last day you are to spend here!" he began at length; "and what good can I have of it--what good have I had indeed of your visit at all? Half the time you have passed with my father, declaiming against the condition of our beloved country in general, and the dictatorship of Baron von Raven in particular. When, after unheard-of efforts, I have been so lucky as to withdraw you from the political ground, you have abused my friendship in the most shameful manner, making me stand sentry in the noonday glare, at a temperature of 86° Fahrenheit. A most agreeable post, I must say!"
"What a way of speaking!" said George, impatiently. "I merely asked you----"
"To keep watch that you should not be disturbed in your meetings--quite accidental meetings, of course--with Fräulein von Harder. That is what we, in plain English, call 'standing sentry!' How many such chance encounters may you, with or without my co-operation as walking gentleman, have enacted on this stage? Take care the mamma does not get to hear of these sociable little rambles."
"You know that my leave is out, and that I must start to-morrow," was the rather curt reply.
Max heaved a little sigh.
"Ah, the interview is likely to last a tremendous time to-day, I see. Don't be offended, old fellow. It may be very interesting to you to swear eternal fidelity by the sun, moon, and stars, but, for an outsider, the business is excessively tedious, particularly with such a temperature as we have to-day. I may safely say it is the warmest proof of friendship I ever gave a man in my life."
Talking thus, they had reached the "wood," really nothing more than a group of chestnut trees shading a stretch of meadow-land on the border of the lake. It was a favourite and much frequented resort of the townsfolk, for from thence might be had a splendid panoramic view of the lovely sheet of water and the grand surrounding mountains. Now, at noonday, the spot was quite solitary and deserted. George who had hurried on before, stood still and gazed around expectantly, but in vain. Max sauntered up slowly after him, and in his turn took a general survey, but with no better result. Failing to discover a figure in the distance, he sat down beneath one of the mightiest chestnut-trees, on a grassy bank which formed a natural resting-place, and whence the finest prospect might be enjoyed. Leaning back in the most comfortable posture, he watched his friend with a mixture of raillery and compassion, as the latter paced up and down, betraying in every look and action his feverish uneasiness.
"I say, George, what is to be the end of this love affair, this romance of yours?" he began again, after a protracted silence.
The other frowned.
"How often have I begged you not to speak of it in that tone?"
"Did I not express myself tenderly enough? There is plenty of romance in your love, I should fancy. A young middle-class Government clerk without fortune or prospects, and a high-born Baroness and future heiress--secret meetings--prospective opposition of the whole family, struggles and emotions ad infinitum. I congratulate you on all these pleasant things. I should look on the business as an awkward one myself, I know."
"That I believe," said George, with a touch of sarcasm; "but, my dear Max, you really are not competent to pronounce on such matters."
"My nature being an out-and-out prosaic one," concluded Max, with perfect equanimity. "Well, I can't say you there tell me anything new. My father perpetually impresses on my mind the fact that I lack all tendency to the ideal. He has conscientiously striven to impart to me these more elevated views and notions, but unfortunately, it has not answered. I do not belong to the class of 'highly organised natures,' such as yourself, for instance. You are far more to my father's taste, and I think he would not hesitate a moment could he adopt you in my place."
A smile passed over George's face.
"If you agree to it, I have no objection."
"Just try it," said Max, dryly. "He is exceptionally gracious to you, because he happens to have taken a special fancy to you; but, in real truth, he is within an ace of turning misanthrope and man-hater. Nothing satisfies him. All his judgments are distorted, his views tinged by that bitter irritability of spirit which he ascribes to an unappeased yearning after the ideal, and that is the ground of the incessant warfare between us. He cannot forgive me for finding myself tolerably comfortable in this miserable, worthless world, with which he himself is at perpetual loggerheads. In fact, matters between us are growing more and more unbearable day by day."
"You do your father an injustice," said George, soothingly. "The man who has given up, as he has given up, home, standing, and freedom, to that which he calls his ideal, has a right to apply a higher standard to the world and to his fellow-creatures."
"But I am not up to the higher standard, you see," declared the young surgeon, testily. "You are much nearer the mark. This my father detected at once, and sequestrated you to his own use accordingly. You would sink wonderfully in his estimation though, if he could guess that, in the very first days of your stay here, you committed the boundless folly of falling in love."
"Max, I beg of you," his friend broke in angrily; but Max was now fairly under way, and was not to be stopped.
"I repeat what I have said: it is folly," he asserted roundly. "You, with your serious views of life, your unceasing toil, your ideal aims--very superfluous things in reality, no doubt, but with you they must be taken into account--and this perverse spoilt child--this Gabrielle von Harder, who has been brought up in the midst of riches and in the lap of luxury, and has been innoculated with all the prejudices of her aristocratic caste! Do you really imagine that she will ever have the smallest understanding for the things which interest you? I tell you she will give you up directly the grave consequences of this holiday idyll become apparent to her, and the influence of her family makes itself felt. You will stake your all on this game, will waste your best strength in struggling with the relations, only to be sacrificed at last to some count or baron, who by birth will be a suitable parti for her young ladyship."
"No, no," said George, with a burst of vehemence. "You hardly know Gabrielle. You have never been in her company more than a few minutes at a time, whilst I----" He stopped suddenly, then went on in a softened voice--"I know well that there is a gap between us, a great divergence besides that of outward circumstances, but she is so young, she has hitherto seen life's sunny side only--and there are no limits to my love for her."
Max shrugged his shoulders in a way which plainly said that the last reason appeared to him highly unsatisfactory.
"Every man to his taste!" he said coolly. "This limitless love would not exactly be mine, and, so far as I see, there is very little to be gained by it. But"--he stood up--"it is time for me to go on duty, for I see the flutter of a light garment out yonder near those elder-bushes, and a glow on your countenance as though the seventh heaven had opened to your delighted vision. George, do me one favour, I entreat. Let not the fact altogether escape your mind that there is such a thing as the noonday hour, and that ordinary mortals are accustomed then to take a repast. An extremely unpractical idea of yours, this rendezvous just in the middle of the day! I hope you will not let me perish from starvation, as a reward for