Having thus delivered himself. Max Brunnow beat a retreat. Young Winterfeld hardly heard what he said. He was intently watching the light slender figure of a girl who now approached from the outskirts of the wood. She came swiftly and gracefully over the grass towards him, and in a few minutes stood at his side.
"Here I am, George. Have you been waiting long? It really seemed as if I should not get away to-day unnoticed, and I very nearly gave up the attempt altogether. But it would have been too cruel to let my knight languish here in vain. I believe you would never, never have forgiven me, if I had let you depart without a solemn farewell."
George held fast the little hand, which after the first slight pressure sought to withdraw itself, and there was a reproachful accent in his voice, as he said:
"Is this separation so light a thing to you, Gabrielle? Have you no other words for me at parting than these teasing quips and jests?"
The young lady looked up in surprise.
"Separation? Parting? Why, we shall see each other again in a month."
"In a month! Does that seem to you so short a time?"
Gabrielle laughed.
"It is just four times seven days. You must manage to live through them in some way; but after that we shall be coming to R---- ourselves, you know. You have a great deal to do with my guardian, have you not?"
"With Baron von Raven? Certainly. I work in his bureaux, as you are aware, and have to make reports to him from time to time."
"I hardly know him," said Gabrielle, indifferently. "I have just seen him now and again when he has come on a short visit to the capital, and that is all. The last time was three years ago. On that occasion his Excellency hardly deigned to notice me--treated me, in fact, exactly like a child, though I was then quite fourteen. You may imagine that I was in no way delighted at the prospect of living under his roof for the future, until"--here she smiled roguishly--"until I made the acquaintance of a certain George Winterfeld, and heard from him that he had the privilege of being one of my guardian's secretaries."
A strange look flitted across George's features, a look which seemed to say he was of a different opinion as to the "privilege."
"You deceive yourself if you build any hopes on that circumstance," he replied gravely. "The intercourse I hold with the Baron is purely official in its nature, and he well knows how to restrict it within the narrowest possible limits. In all else I stand wide as the poles apart from him. A young, middle-class man, holding as yet only a subordinate government appointment, does not find admittance to the Governor's circles, and can hardly venture to claim acquaintance with the Baroness von Harder. There will be distance enough between us, even though I come daily to the house in which you dwell. Here in this holiday freedom we have had the chance of learning to know, to love each other."
"In reality, you owe it to our boat which struck on the sand-bank just at the right time," put in Gabrielle. "Do you remember our first meeting, George? To this day mamma believes that she was in deadly peril, and looks on you as her deliverer, because you brought us cleverly through the shallow water to land. She would hardly have consented else to receive such frequent visits from one bearing your plebeian name; but the man who has saved one's life must be an exception, of course. If she did but know that her hero has already made me a declaration of love!"
The undisguised triumph expressed in the last words seemed to grate upon the young man. He fixed his eyes on her countenance with a scrutinising, anxious gaze.
"And if the Baroness should hear of it, sooner or later, what would you do?"
"Present you to her in all due form as my future lord and master," declared Gabrielle, with comic solemnity. "There would be an explosion, of course: tears, reproaches, hysterics--mamma is a capital hand at all these, but it comes to nothing. She invariably gives in at last, and I get my own way."
She said all this airily, carelessly, laughing gleefully as she spoke. The thought of a catastrophe which would have filled any other maiden with alarm, was, it appeared, positively diverting to the young Baroness Harder. She had seated herself on the grassy mound, and taken off her straw hat. The sunbeams, which here and there pierced through the thick leafy canopy of the chestnut-trees, played on her luxuriant fair hair and blooming face, whence a pair of great sparkling brown eyes looked merrily forth into the world. The face, with its delicate, pure outlines, was undoubtedly of fascinating loveliness, but it was wanting in that soul-speaking depth of expression which gives to the human countenance its highest charm. Beneath this radiant, beaming gaiety, one might have sought in vain any token of graver, deeper feeling. This want, however, hardly lessened the attractiveness of her fresh beauty, for all about her breathed of rosy youth, of life's happy, blossoming spring-time. She seemed the embodied reflection of the landscape out yonder, sunny and light as herself.
George looked at her with a singular mixture of vexation and tenderness.
"Gabrielle, you treat all this as so much sport, and seem to have no idea of the troubles which menace us, of the battles we shall have to fight!"
"Is the thought of battle alarming to you?"
"To me?" A flush mounted to the young man's brow. "I am ready to cope with every difficulty, if only you will stand steadily by me. But you mistake if you reckon on your mother's customary compliance in this instance, when all her prejudices will be aroused, all her family traditions evoked in opposition. And even if you should succeed in winning her over, nothing will change your guardian's views. I know him. He will never give his consent."
Gabrielle leaned her fair head against the tree's mighty trunk, and plucked carelessly at some blades of grass.
"I do not care for his consent," she said. "I shall not allow him to dictate to me one way or the other. Let him try to coerce me!"
"No one will attempt to coerce you, but they will separate us," replied George. "The very moment our love is discovered, our separation will be decreed. I know it, and it is this knowledge alone which imposes silence on me. You little guess how the secrecy, which has such a charm for you, the continued anxious concealment, distresses and humiliates me; how contrary it is to my whole nature. Now for the first time I feel all the hardship of being poor and unknown."
"What does it matter if you are poor?" asked Gabrielle, carelessly. "I shall be very rich one day. Mamma is always telling me that I am to be Uncle Raven's sole heiress."
George was silent, setting his lips tightly as though to keep down some bitter feeling.
"Yes, you will be rich," he said at last; "you will be only too rich."
"I really believe you mean it as a reproach," pouted the young lady, with a highly ungracious look.
"No; but it opens out one more gap between us. If you were in the same position of life as myself, I might come to you fearlessly, and ask, not for your hand at once, perhaps, but for your plighted faith, until such time as I could offer you a home of your own. As it is, what would Baron von Raven say, I wonder, if I ventured to propose to him for the hand of his ward and presumptive heiress? He stands in your father's place. You are under his authority."
"Yes; but only until I come of age. In a few years, my lord's guardianship and authority will expire together. Then I shall be free."
"In a few years!" echoed George. "And what will be your feelings then?"
There was such sorrowful apprehension in his words that Gabrielle looked up half-frightened, half-offended.
"George, do you doubt my love?"
He clasped her hand tightly in his.
"I have faith in you, my Gabrielle; trust me in return. I am not the first man who has worked his way up, and I have always been taught to look forward with confidence, and to depend on my own strength. I will strain every nerve for your sake. You shall not be ashamed of your choice."
"Yes; you will have to make me the wife of an Excellency at least," laughed Gabrielle.