But Antonio, too, was beautiful--beautiful as a dream, and yet she did not love him. And was he, who was not even an artist--was he to let beauty alone so fascinate him that he should give up family prejudice, rank, social position, all--for what? A woman never asks such questions if she loves; she makes no calculations, no bargains--she loves, and gives freely, joyfully, everything that she has to give--she gives herself.
She leaned back in her chair, buried her face in the cushions, and shut her eyes.
"He does not know how passionately I love him, how I would cover him with kisses," she murmured; and yet, how did it go? "The only charm which a man cannot withstand, and which he follows unresistingly … and his gratitude for which is, in fact, only recollection and longing----"
It was from a French novel that she had gathered this melancholy piece of knowledge--not a good book--and she had not read to the end. But this sentence, which she did not dare repeat entirely to herself, had fallen into her heart like a spark of fire, and smouldered and burnt there--in her heart, in her cheeks, in her closed eyes, in the beating pulses of her temples--air! air!
She started up and clutched at the empty air like a drowning man. "I am lost," she cried, "I am lost, lost!"
A knock at the door, which she had already heard once or twice, now sounded louder. She let her arms fall, glanced round the room, grasped the letter hidden in her bosom, and passed her hands over her hair and brow and eyes and cheeks. "Come in!"
"I was afraid of disturbing you," said Reinhold, standing in the open doorway.
"Oh, come in and shut the door."
It was the Ferdinanda of last night, with the half-careless, half-sullen, impenetrable manner, and the deep, monotonous, tired voice.
Reinhold did as he was desired. She replaced the modelling tool, which she had caught up at random, on the little table, and gave him her hand.
"I have been waiting a long time for you."
"I should have been here sooner," answered Reinhold, "but a handsome young fellow next door, whom I seemed to disturb in the act of dressing----"
"Antonio, an Italian--Herr Anders' assistant."
"He either could not or would not give me any information. So I have been through the yards and the machinery department in search of your father, and--did you not hear the noise?"
"No."
Reinhold stared with astonishment, his heart was still beating and his mind still full of what he had seen and heard. The clang of the bell had frightened Aunt Rikchen out of the house, where he had just led her back only half quieted; the servants had run and stood in the distance, staring anxiously; blind Cilli had come into the doorway and had said a few kind words to him as he passed by; and here, fifty yards off, his own daughter had heard nothing!
"Do you artists live in a world of your own?" he asked in astonishment, and then he explained what had happened. "I am afraid," he added, "that half the manufactory will have to be closed. My uncle will suffer immense loss, for he has heavy contracts to fulfil, so the men told me before. Heaven only knows how it will all end!"
"What will it signify to my father?" answered Ferdinanda, as a bitter smile played about her lips. "The world may come to an end if only he can have his own way! You do not know my father quite yet," she continued more quietly. "We, unhappily, are accustomed to this sort of thing; all we know is that we live over a volcano. If we left off work every time there was a storm we should have no peace, and should never finish anything."
She had taken off her great apron. Reinhold was standing looking at her work.
"How do you like it?" asked Ferdinanda.
"It is beautiful," answered Reinhold, with sincere admiration; "but I could wish it were less beautiful if it might be less sad. The expression of the mouth, the look of the eyes as they are shaded by the head--the whole effect of the otherwise lovely face seems to me not quite in keeping with the peaceful and rural occupation suggested by the sickle and wheatsheaf. As I came in I fancied a maiden looking out for her lover. She is looking out for him, but woe to him when he comes! He had better be careful of the sickle! Am I right?"
"Perfectly," answered Ferdinanda. "And now I am more glad than ever that I am going with you to the Exhibition. It must be a pleasure to look at the work of real artists with any one who can so closely criticise the work of an amateur."
She was standing at the end of the room, and let the water from a tap in the wall run over her hands into a washhand-basin. "Excuse me," said she, "but that is what we are obliged to do here. Now tell me how you slept."
"Perfectly as soon as I got to sleep. I was a little excited at first."
"So was I. I had to walk for a long time in the garden before I could calm myself. May I confess? I was so ashamed of my father's losing his temper before you, as you could not know what he was like in such matters, and that he can work himself up into a perfect fury over a mere nothing. Luckily, he only fights these battles in imagination; and, for example, if the son of the man whose very name--heaven only knows why--puts him into such a state, if Herr von Werben were to pay you a visit, and my father met him, he would be courtesy itself. I tell you that because I presume you will not be able to avoid some intercourse with the Werbens, and might think the situation more serious than it really is. Indeed, I am convinced that if I had not, in my extreme nervousness, cut short the introduction yesterday at the station, and my father could have seen that Herr von Werben is a man very much like other men, that scene never would have occurred. But one can't think of everything."
So said Ferdinanda as she slowly walked through the garden, which led, by a back door, from the studio to the house. The sun threw a shadow from the trees upon the garden wall, as the moon had done last night.
"It really was only a shadow on the wall," said Reinhold to himself.
CHAPTER X.
I am afraid you will spoil me so dreadfully that I shall find it very difficult to return to my simple "way of life," said Reinhold, as he drove through the Brandenburg gate of the Thiergartenstrasse sitting by Ferdinanda's side in his uncle's carriage.
"What is the good of having carriages and horses if they are not to be used?" answered Ferdinanda.
She had thrown herself back upon the cushions with the tip of her foot upon the opposite seat. Reinhold could hardly take his eyes off the exquisite figure, which was shown off to the greatest advantage by a pretty autumn toilette. He seemed to realise for the first time how beautiful his cousin was, and he could quite understand why she so plainly attracted the notice of the gaily-dressed crowds that thronged the walks, and why several riders as they trotted past turned in their saddles. Ferdinanda did not seem to observe it; the large eyes looked straight before her, or were raised with a tired dreamy look to the branches of the trees, which seemed tired and dreamy, too, as they drank in unmoved the mild warmth of the autumn sunshine. Perhaps it was this connection of ideas which made Reinhold ask himself about what age the beautiful girl might be? and he was rather astonished when he calculated that she could not be far from four and twenty. She had always lived in his memory as a tall thin girl, not yet blossomed into flower, but then certainly that was ten years ago. His cousin Philip, who was then a long lanky youth, must now be very nearly thirty.
A light two-wheeled carriage that had been following them now overtook them.
On the high driving-seat sat a tall, fine, broad-shouldered man, well, and it struck Reinhold rather over dressed, driving a pair of remarkably fine