Helen probably felt that if she added another word she would not be able to keep up her reserve hereafter, and broke off with a suddenness which showed the remarkable control this young creature had already obtained over herself.
"But we are losing time," she said, with a totally changed air, tone, and carriage, "and about most unprofitable things. Come, we must hurry to get back to our music!"
It was not the first time that Helen had thus suddenly given a new turn to a conversation that threatened to become too intimate. Sophie had to submit to it, although she was pained by this want of confidence, and especially as she felt how Helen was entirely left alone, and what a blessing it would have been to her to be able to pour out her overburdened heart into the sympathizing bosom of a true friend. She did not feel offended, therefore, by Helen's haughty reserve; on the contrary, she was more than ever resolved rather to make her way slowly and stealthily into Helen's confidence, than to return pride for pride and reticence for reticence.
There was to be more than one occasion offered her to-day.
They had been playing and singing at Sophie's house, almost without interruption, until it began to grow dark in the large room, which was in the lower story. They paused because they could not see very well any longer, and were walking up and down in the room, arm in arm, while the effect of the music was still vibrating in their hearts, and even Helen's proud heart felt milder and softer. She had been forcibly reminded of the death of her favorite by one of Robert Schumann's beautiful songs, which filled her with sweet pain. The sad, mournful words, with the sad, plaintive melody, continued in her ear--
"Thy face, alas! so fair and dear, I saw it in my dreams quite near; It was so angel-like, so sweet, And yet with pain and grief replete.
The lips alone, they are still red, But soon they also will be pale and dead."
She thought of the night when Baron Oldenburg had led her from the midst of the dancers to Bruno's dying bed; she saw again how at her entrance the boy's eye flamed up in his deadly-pale face.
"The lips alone, they are still red, But soon they also will be pale and dead,"
she murmured, as if she were speaking to herself.
"This song seems to have made as great an impression upon you as upon Doctor Stein," said Sophie.
"Upon whom?" cried Helen, suddenly aroused from her dreams.
"Upon Doctor Stein! your Doctor Stein!" replied Sophie, as indifferently as if she had never given a thought to the relations which might possibly exist between Oswald and Helen.
"When did you see him?" asked Helen again, in her ordinary calmly-grand manner.
"Last night, here; for the first time. He had been two days in town without having seen Franz. Yesterday Franz met him accidentally in the street, and brought him home with him. Otherwise we should probably have had to wait a long time for his visit."
"How so?"
"Well, it did not look as if the visit gave him particular pleasure.
Still I can hardly judge of that fairly, as yesterday was the first time I ever saw him. But to tell the truth, he looked to me as if nothing in the world was likely to give him much pleasure. Franz says it is not so at all, but he admitted that Mr. Stein had changed remarkably in the short time during which they had not seen each other.
How was he when you knew him?"
Sophie thought she felt that Helen's heart was beating higher, as she asked this very harmless question. Yet she did not show any excitement in her voice, as she answered:
"I have seldom seen Mr. Stein except in company and, you know, there we have very little opportunity to see men as they really are. He looked to me generally very grave, almost sad, reserved, and silent, especially during the last weeks. But the state of things in my family at that time was such as to produce very naturally such an effect. How was he yesterday?"
"That is difficult to say for one who is as little of a psychologist as I am," replied Sophie, determined to tell the truth, even if it should hurt Helen. "He looked to me gay, almost exuberant, but not cheerful; talkative, but not communicative; witty, but not entertaining; in one word, a combination of striking contrasts, which produced a very painful impression on me, because I love, above all, what is clear, easily intelligible and simple. I was especially shocked at the manner in which he spoke about his position here and his vocation in life. He seemed to look upon everything as mere play. He gave us a sketch of a party to which he had been invited at Mr. Clemens's house, and poured a perfect flood of irony and sarcasm on the poor people. He described his solemn installation at the college, which had taken place that morning, and represented the whole as a scene in a puppet-show. Franz tells me he has something of Doctor Faust in his nature; to me he looked rather like Mephistopheles. Nor did I think him so very handsome, as Franz had represented him. He looked pale and haggard, as if he were sick, or had not slept for several nights. His large eyes had an expression weird and ghost-like. I had all the time to think of the lines: 'It is written on his brow, that he can make no vow of faithful love'--or however the verse may be."
"Then he must indeed have changed very much," said Helen.
The tone in which the young girl said these words was so very sad, that Sophie regretted having been carried away by the secret antipathy she felt in her heart against Stein, and perhaps still more by a desire to provoke Helen by violent contradiction, and thus to punish her for her reserve.
"Still," she said, to soothe the wound; "still, this is not to be my final judgment about Doctor Stein; it is nothing but a first impression. I shall probably think differently about him when I see him more frequently. Franz is so very fond of him, and, you know, we girls when we are engaged are apt to be jealous. But I just remember, he may be here every moment!" she cried, interrupting herself.
"Who?" said Helen, "Oswald?"
"I had really quite forgotten it. Thoughtless girl that I am!"
"What is it?"
"Stein and Franz had agreed to hear a lecture by Professor Benseler together. And Franz went directly after dinner to see a patient of father's in the country. I was to have sent word to Stein. I wonder if it is time yet?"
"It is half-past five now," said Helen, stepping to the window to look at her watch. "It is almost dark and I must make haste to get home."
At that moment there came a knock at the door.
"There he is!" cried the two young ladies _unisono_, trembling like a couple of deer when a shot is fired in the wood.
Another knock.
"What shall we do?" whispered Helen, who seemed to have lost all her self-control.
"Of course we must say: 'Walk in!' What else can we do?" replied Sophie, laughing involuntarily. "Walk in!"
The person who entered was probably unable to recognize the ladies in the half-dark room; he remained standing near the door, as if he hesitated.
"Come nearer, doctor," said Sophie, holding Helen's hands. "I must ask your pardon for receiving you in the dark; but we will have light directly."
Oswald had approached her as she said these words, and had bowed to the ladies. Evidently he had not yet recognized Helen, who stood aside, looking towards the window.
"I have to ask pardon," he said, "for I fear I have interrupted the ladies. But as I found nobody in the hall----"
Suddenly he stopped; the blood rushed to his heart. He shuddered all over. Was not the silent figure by Miss Roban, Helen? He approached a little nearer. There was no doubt; that head whose outline he had so often admired almost reverently, could belong to no one but Helen ...
He hardly heard Sophie say "You do not recognize Fraulein von Grenwitz; I will go myself to order lights." He heard the door close behind Miss Roban; he only knew that he was alone with her. He knelt down before her and seized her hand to cover it with burning kisses.
The surprise and the darkness favored Oswald's boldness. Helen trembled so violently that she could not prevent him; she had barely strength enough to say:
"For God's sake, Oswald, get up! I pray you, get up!"
It was high time, for at that moment Sophie returned, followed by a servant who brought a lamp.
Oswald succeeded in checking his emotion. Helen turned to the window, under the pretext that the sudden light was dazzling her eyes, and looked down upon the street, while Sophie explained Franz's absence.
"Then I will not deprive the ladies for another moment of the enjoyment of a friendly chat," said Oswald, bowing to take leave.
"Why, Doctor," said Sophie, gayly, "are you such a foe to friendly chats that your presence must need make an end to them? You ought rather to sit down and do credit to Franz, who calls you the most entertaining companion he knows. Come, Helen, take a seat here by the fire-place. Miss Mal will not cry too bitterly if you stay a little longer."
Oswald had just been about to accept the offered seat; but when he heard that Helen possibly might not stay, he contented himself with a silent bow, to acknowledge Sophie's invitation.
"Thanks, dear Sophie," said Helen, turning round from the window, "but I must really go--another time."
She had apparently regained her usual calmness; only a very acute observer might have noticed in the deeper red of her cheeks the last trace of past emotion, and in her cast-down eyes the desire to conceal the latter from observation.