A Noble Name Part 15

"The physician from town has given him up," Hildegard replied.

Hedwig gazed into the fire. After a pause she said, scarce audibly, "If he were to die, Otto would be the heir."

"And the wayward Magelone would be _vis-a-vis de rien_," Hildegard added.

"I do not think so; it would only be the exchange of a lover for her.

Look there!" said Hedwig. She had observed in the mirror that Otto had arisen from the table, where he had been reading the papers, and had joined Magelone.

Hildegard smiled with an air of superiority. "Never fear," she said, with conviction. "Magelone was very well suited for Johann Leopold, unamiable and misanthropic as he was; but if Otto is ever the heir, he may fairly look to make a brilliant match, which he will do. I know our brother."

She might not have been so very sure if she had heard the conversation in the window-recess.

"Are you sad, Magelone?" asked Otto, as he took her hand. "Are you grieving for Johann Leopold?"

"Grieving? No; your sisters irritated me," she replied. "I detest to have mountains made out of mole-hills. Imagine their talking of death and a funeral!"

"You are right; there is no necessity for giving up all hope so soon,"

said Otto. "But, on the other side, is it not natural that every possibility should present itself to the imagination? I, too, Magelone, with all my trying not to look upon the dark side, have not been able to refrain, since the accident, from asking myself how you would feel, Magelone, if--if we were to lose Johann Leopold." And he bent over her so that his moustache nearly touched her cheek as he added, "Would you grieve?"

"I should be very sorry, as we should all be," she said.

"Not as for the loss of a lover?" he asked again.

She cast one quick glance up at him, and then her eyelids drooped. "I cannot feign," she whispered. "But why do you tease me so? What does it matter to you?"

She tried to withdraw her hand from his, but he held it fast.

"Magelone," he whispered,--and there was a pa.s.sionate tremor in his voice,--"have you never remembered that if Johann Leopold dies I am his heir? Understand all that this means: you, too, would then be mine!"

"Hus.h.!.+" she interrupted him, half in anger, half in terror. "For G.o.d's sake, hus.h.!.+ I will not listen to another word!" And she turned from him and joined his sisters again.

But his words had fallen upon fruitful soil. Magelone could not but reflect upon the possibility at which he had hinted, and her fancy painted a future based upon this possibility. There was an actual change in her sentiments. Otto's words on this New Year's evening could not have been uttered in mere dalliance, and her heart responded in louder throbs than hitherto. There came now and then a fleeting consciousness of wrong, when she would weep and consider herself miserably unhappy; but she sought consolation in further imaginings, and when she encountered Otto there was a degree of suppressed emotion in her words and looks which lent a new charm to a creature usually so cool and self-possessed. Otto was, as he confessed to himself, 'awfully in love with her.'

Days pa.s.sed without bringing any essential change in Johann Leopold's condition. "About the same," was the comfortless answer which the Freiherr made every morning to the anxious inquirers of the family, and he sat more silent and gloomy than ever at the head of the table. The only person with whom he sometimes conversed was Ludwig.

"If I could only understand what grandpapa can find in that pretentious creature," said Hildegard. "He comes and goes, and gives his opinion quite as if he belonged to us. But where should such people learn to behave themselves?"

Magelone said, "So this is the famous foster-brother, Johanna's ideal.

The head of a bull-dog on the body of an elephant."

Eduard and Karl, after Ludwig had smoked a cigar with them, p.r.o.nounced him a 'first-rate fellow.' Otto found him tedious, and Aunt Thekla called him the 'gentlest and kindest of men,' while Johanna was constantly hurt and offended by his cynical tone.

The second day after his arrival she asked him to take a walk with her.

As they walked along under the gray wintry skies, the crows flying cawing overhead and the snow crackling beneath their feet, Johanna said, "This is like the good old times when you used to come home at Christmas for the holidays. Do you remember how we used to make expeditions to see how our summer resorts looked in their winter dress?"

"Yes," he replied; "but our walk to-day does not remind me of them. Then your walks with me were not merely occasional; my home was yours.

Remember that since then you have rejected that home and chosen Donninghausen."

"I hoped you understood my choice and approved it."

"Understood,--yes; approved,--no," he replied, and changed the subject.

A few days later, after the family had all been together in the drawing-room, he said, "I really believe, my dear Johanna, that you have a talent for the stage, you play your part of fine lady so admirably.

You even receive the attentions of that blase lieutenant, who must be intolerable to you, so graciously that any one who did not know you so well as I do would be deceived by your manner."

Johanna blushed. "You are mistaken. I think my cousin Otto very agreeable, and I like to talk with him," she rejoined.

Ludwig laughed bitterly. "Then I am forced to admire you still more. Not only to seem, but actually to be, what every station in life may require, to suit one's desires and opinions to one's surroundings, requires a rare degree of talent."

"You misunderstand me," she said, offended.

"I always did," was his reply.

At the moment Johanna was hurt by such speeches from Ludwig, but she never resented them for long. Perhaps she had an involuntary suspicion that his mistrust and misconception sprang from disappointed affection, or perhaps her heart was full of other things. The explanation she gave herself was that for the sake of the help and comfort he gave to Johann Leopold, to her grandfather, and to Aunt Thekla, she must forgive her childhood's playmate any harshness of demeanour.

For a series of years it had been the custom for all the family to stay over Twelfth-Night at Donninghausen, and to leave on the seventh of January. On the morning of the sixth the Wildenhayns were consulting with Otto and Magelone as to whether they should depart as usual, or, without any announcement of their intentions, stay until there was some change in Johann Leopold, or, lastly, ask their grandfather what his wishes were in the matter.

"I must go to-morrow; my leave is at an end," said Otto; and he added, in a tone intended for Magelone alone, "I will come back for the funeral."

"You should not talk so," she replied, reproachfully. She had been thinking the same thing herself.

At this moment the Freiherr entered. "Children!" he cried, approaching the group, "thank G.o.d with me. Johann Leopold is out of danger."

There were loud exclamations of delight. Otto's silence was unnoticed.

Magelone grew pale, tottered, and would have fallen if Eduard, who stood next her, had not caught her in his arms.

"It is nothing,--nothing," she said, recovering herself. The Freiherr looked keenly at her. "Dear Magelone, compose yourself," he said kindly; but she could not endure his gaze. She bent down and kissed his hand, bursting into tears as she did so.

"Nonsense, child! All is well now. Come, come, command yourself!" And as he conducted her to a seat he said to himself, "She is a warm-hearted little thing after all, and loves the lad better than I thought."

To reward her, the Freiherr addressed his account of the invalid especially to her. She was obliged to listen to a detailed account of Johann Leopold's return to consciousness, and recognition of his grandfather and Aunt Thekla.

"He is sleeping now," the old Herr concluded. "Christian and Thekla are watching him like dragons guarding a treasure, but as soon as he wakes you shall see him, my dear child."

Ludwig entering overheard the last words. "I beg pardon, Herr von Donninghausen," he said in his decided way, "but there I must interpose my veto. The sick man needs entire rest, and I must entreat that no one except those who have hitherto been with him may enter his room without my permission."

Hildegard stared in haughty surprise at the venturous mortal who dared thus bluntly to contradict the Freiherr. "Dear grandfather," she said, with the intention of provoking the old Herr still further, "if we must all submit to the doctor's orders we are quite useless here, and had better depart to-morrow."

She fully expected to hear a grim authoritative, "You will stay, and see Johann Leopold as soon as possible!" Instead of which the Freiherr replied, "Yes, children, go. You will come again for the celebration of his recovery and betrothal." And, without noticing his grand-daughter's mortification, he joined the Wildenhayns, who were discussing the patient with Ludwig.

Hildegard drew her sister aside to the window. Otto went up to Magelone, who was sitting in an arm-chair by the table, meditatively toying with her bracelets.

"What now?" he asked in a low voice.

She looked up at him, but he could not tell whether the gleam in her eyes meant pain, anger, or derision.

"What now?" he asked once more, and tried to take her hand, but the slender fingers eluded his clasp.

"Take care!" she said, composedly. His face flushed. "That means, in other words, that you are once more Johann Leopold's faithful, submissive true-love," he said, bitterly. "You are like the cat; she clings to the house, caring nothing about who its possessor may be."