The Eichhofs Part 11

"One is certainly as honourable a calling as the other," Rosen said, calmly.

Bernhard maintained a gloomy silence. Thea gazed at her father with eyes that understood and appreciated him. His view of the matter was new to her, but she agreed with him.

Fortunately, the young girls with Walter made their appearance at this moment, and the conversation was not prolonged before Adela. Countess Eichhof, finding it impossible to control her agitation, and with very vague ideas as to what really was Walter's intention, withdrew to bury with many tears her enchanting dream of Walter as an amba.s.sador.

Adela, who found the air at Eichhof to-day not at all to her liking, ordered her carriage, and Walter and Alma accompanied her into the hall. "Oh, I forgot to bring down the book you lent me, Alma!" she exclaimed, standing on the lowest of the flight of steps. "No, Walter, you cannot get it; I left it in Alma's room."

Alma good-naturedly ran to fetch it, and Adela looked after her with a smile.

"I left it there on purpose," she said to Walter; "and I hid it a little, for I wanted to speak to you one moment alone."

Walter smiled at her small plot, though he shook his finger at her.

"What have you to say to me?" he said, stepping close to her side.

"First, I want to know whether you are still my good friend."

Instead of replying, Walter took out her ring, which he wore on a ribbon around his neck, and kissed it.

Adela blushed.

"Put it away quickly," she said, with a shy glance around. "No one must know that you have it, for people are so stupid; too stupid! They could not understand. But what I really wanted to ask was why you are so terribly serious and quiet. Has anything gone particularly wrong?"

Adela's blue eyes were so near Walter's face that his breath stirred the curls upon her forehead, and she looked at him so earnestly and kindly that his cheek suddenly flushed, and the voice in which he answered her was rather unsteady. "I cannot explain it to you now, Adela. It is a long story, and everything seems to me to be going particularly wrong just now."

"But I am fairly dying with curiosity; tell me about it, quickly!" she exclaimed, impatiently.

He shook his head. "Not now; I will come to Rollin to-morrow."

"Ride through the park, then, and I will be waiting for you on the round white bench near the pond. Some one is always sure to interrupt us at the house, and you never will be able to finish your story. By the white bench, then, at eleven o'clock in the morning; I cannot possibly wait until the afternoon."

She had scarcely issued this _ordre de bataille_, which was given quite in the tone of a military commander, when Alma appeared with the book, and Fraulein Adela drove off, well satisfied with the success of her plot and with the prospect of Walter's visit.

CHAPTER X.

FOUND AND LOST.

There was a misty green, betokening the coming spring, upon the bare boughs of the trees in the park at Rollin, and the little lake in its midst reflected the clear blue of the skies above it. Adela, seated on the white bench, near the water, was hardly aware either of the budding branches around her or of the gleaming mirror before her. Her thoughts were occupied with her expected visitor, and her hands and eyes with a beautiful brown greyhound that never seemed to tire of leaping to and fro over the riding-whip she held out for him.

"What will Walter tell me?" she thought. "Jump, Fidele!" she called out to the dog, who had paused for a moment and looked dubiously at his mistress. "You are a good creature," she went on, stroking his handsome head, and again her thoughts flew to Walter. "Poor dear fellow, his eyes have so sad a look in them now; and indeed it is too uncomfortable in Eichhof. Thea really looks quite ill; she must be fairly bored to death. Come, Fidele, you shall jump once more, and then I'll give you some sugar."

And the dog jumped again, and was fed with sugar, while his mistress began to think that Walter allowed himself to be waited for too long.

Suddenly she sprang up. The sound of a horse's hoofs was audible, and in an instant Walter turned into the avenue of oaks that led to where she was sitting. Fidele ran towards him, and leaped beside the horse barking his welcome, while Adela, in sudden and unexpected confusion, which she strove to hide behind an affectation of indifference, fixed her eyes upon the surface of the lake beyond the rider.

"Well," she said, when Walter, having tied his horse to a tree, stood beside her, "I have only just arrived. I nearly forgot our appointment."

"I should have been so sorry not to find you," he said, "for after our offensive and defensive alliance it would have pained me to leave Eichhof without telling you myself of what you will be sure to hear from others, coloured, probably, by their prejudices."

"Leave? You are going away? Where? You have only just come!" the girl exclaimed, evidently alarmed, and quite forgetting her part of indifference, as she drew Fidele towards her and put her arms around his neck, as if craving some sympathy from him, while she looked up at Walter anxiously.

"You perhaps remember a ride we took together, about a year ago, when I told you how hard I had found it to resign the idea of studying medicine," Walter began.

"Good heavens, Walter," she interrupted him, "you are not going to begin about that again?"

He gazed at her seriously and sadly for a moment in silence, and noted the eager and yet terrified expression in her eyes.

"But I am," he then said, softly. "I am firmly, unalterably resolved----"

"Walter!" she exclaimed loudly, thrusting Fidele from her. "You cannot!

you dare not! Think of your father!"

"I have thought of him and tried to do as he wished. But do you not think that my father loved me and earnestly desired my happiness?"

"Yes; and for that very reason you ought to do nothing that he would have disapproved."

"And suppose I am perfectly convinced that I never could be contented, but, on the contrary, should be positively miserable, in the career he chose for me?"

"You still ought to pursue that career."

"And live but half a life, tormented by the consciousness that I was entirely unfitted for my position? No, Adela, my father never could have wished me to do this. When I told him of my wishes I had not yet made an attempt to conform to his. This was my duty, and I have done it. Now what I only suspected has come to be a certainty. I have no interest whatever in the study of the law. I cannot make it the business of my life. Do you not believe that the knowledge of this would alter my father's views?"

"Your father never would have allowed you to be a doctor."

"Then he would have sacrificed his better self to a prejudice. The very essence of his being was a kindly enjoyment of life, and it would have caused him the greatest sorrow to have been the occasion of unhappiness to one of his sons. I believe that if he had lived he would have seen this and would have yielded to my wishes. Happiness and unhappiness are dealt out to us by heaven, but human will is not without influence in their distribution. As far as I can I choose to be happy, and in so being to fulfil what I know to have been my father's chief hope for me."

"But your mother,--think of your mother; she never will consent to what you desire."

"No, my mother never will consent until some brilliant result justifies my choice. But she is just as averse to a commonplace legal career, which is what I should now be obliged to pursue, since I cannot be under obligations to my brother. I must be independent. My mother has no decided views for me at present. I hope to win her over in time.

Bernhard is angry with me; Lothar only laughs at me. I am very much alone in my family, Adela. But I never shall forget that I am an Eichhof, and I shall try, so far as I can, to do honour to my name. I hope that my mother may one day be proud of me; at all events she shall never be ashamed of me."

He had spoken with some emotion latterly, almost more to himself than to Adela. He suddenly paused and looked at her. Her eyes were opened wide, and tears were rolling down her cheeks.

"Now you know all. Are you still my friend, Adela?" he asked, bending over her.

She seized his hand, and cried, between laughter and tears, "Dear, dear Walter, I know I ought to be angry with you, but I cannot, I cannot."

He pressed her hand to his lips. "Then you think I am right, Adela?" he asked, gazing earnestly into her eyes.

"Good heavens! I do not know, Walter," she sobbed; "but you are so good, and we have known each other so long, and I know you will go away now and never come back again for years."

"And you are sorry?" he whispered.

She did not reply, but her tears continued to flow silently, and, as if to conceal them, she leaned her head upon Walter's shoulder. He put his arm around her, and she made no resistance.

His lips almost touched her curls, and she wept so uncontrollably that his heart was inexpressibly touched. Her tears, and the gentle pressure of her head upon his shoulder, annihilated all the fixed resolves he had made with regard to her; all the prudent reasonings with which he had silenced the promptings of his heart were melted by those 'kindly drops,' like the last snow beneath a warm spring shower. "Dear, dearest Adela!" he whispered, and kissed her brow. She threw her arms about his neck and nestled close to him.