him at the gaming-table, and that the wife's one care and anxiety had been to eclipse all the other ladies of the capital by the superior richness of her toilettes and the handsome appointments of her equipages. At her father's death the Baroness had inherited the property conjointly with her sister. Her share had been squandered to the last penny, while Madame von Raven's fortune remained intact in her husband's hands.
"Enough!" he said, waiving the topic. "Let us say no more on this disagreeable subject. I have offered you a home under my roof, and I am glad that you have accepted the proposal. Since my wife's death, I have been in some degree dependent on strangers, who preside well enough over the establishment, but who cannot in all things fill the place of the mistress of the house. You, Matilda, know how to entertain, and like receptions, fêtes, dinners, and the like--now it is precisely in regard to these matters that I have felt a want. Our interests coincide, you see, and I have no doubt we shall be mutually satisfied with each other."
He spoke in his usual cool and measured tone. Evidently Baron von Raven was not disposed to glory in the rôle of benefactor and deliverer, though to these relatives of his he had really acted as both. He treated the matter altogether from a business point of view.
"I will do all in my power to meet your wishes," declared Madame von Harder, following her brother-in-law's example as he rose and went up to the window.
He addressed a few further indifferent questions to her, asking whether the arrangement of the rooms was to her taste, whether she received proper attendance and had all she required, but he hardly listened to the torrent of words with which the lady assured him that everything was charming--delightful!
His attention was fixed on a very different object.
Just under the window of that boudoir was a little garden attached to the door-keeper's lodge. In this garden Miss Gabrielle was walking, or rather racing round and round after the door-keeper's two children, for the walk had resolved itself into a wild chase at last. When the young lady that morning undertook a short excursion "to see what the place was like," as she expressed it to her mother, the place itself had but little part in the interest she manifested. She knew that George Winterfeld came daily to the Government-house, and it must be her task, therefore, to arrange some plan for those frequent meetings which George had declared to be impossible, or, at best, exceedingly difficult.
Miss Gabrielle did not adopt this view of the case, and her reconnaissance was now directed to one end and aim, namely, to discover precisely where the Baron's bureaux, in which the young official was employed, were situated. On her way, however, she fell in with the lodge-keeper's small seven-year-old boy and his little sister, and quickly made friends with both. The bright, lively children returned the young lady's advances with confiding alacrity, and these new acquaintances soon drove all thoughts of her exploring expedition, and alas! of him for whose sake it had been undertaken, entirely into the background.
She allowed the little ones to lead her into the small garden which was attached to the lodge, and was entirely distinct from the Castle-garden proper. She admired with them the shrubs and flower-beds, and the three rapidly advanced in intimacy. In less than a quarter of an hour a game was set on foot, accompanied by all the requisite noise, to which Miss Gabrielle contributed fully as much as her young playmates. She bounded after them over the beds, stimulating them to fresh efforts, and provoking them to ever-renewed gaiety.
Unbecoming as this no doubt was in a young lady of seventeen, and in the Governor's niece, to an unprejudiced beholder the spectacle was none the less charming. Every movement of the young girl's supple form was marked by unconscious, natural grace. The slight figure, in its white morning-dress, flitted like a sunbeam between the dusky trees. Some of her luxuriant blond tresses had grown loose in the course of her wild sport, and now fell over her shoulders in rich abundance, while her merry laughter and the children's happy shouts were borne up to the Castle windows.
The Baroness, looking down from her point of observation, was struck with horror at her daughter's indecorous conduct especially when she became aware that Raven was intently following the scene below. What must that haughty man, that severe stickler for etiquette, think of the education of a young lady who could comport herself in this free-and-easy manner before his eyes? The Baroness, apprehending some of those stinging, sarcastic comments in which her brother-in-law was wont to indulge, sought, as much as in her lay, to mitigate the ill impression.
"Gabrielle is wonderfully childish still at times," she lamented. "It is impossible to make her understand that such babyish ways are highly unsuitable in a young lady of her age. I almost dread her first appearance in society--which had to be postponed a year in consequence of her father's death. She is quite capable of behaving in that wild, reckless way in a drawing-room."
"Let the child be natural while she may," said the Baron, his eyes still fixed on the group below. "She will learn soon enough to be a lady of fashion. It would really be a pity to check her now; the girl is a very sunbeam incarnate."
The Baroness pricked up her ears. It was the first time she had ever heard a speech at all genial from her brother-in-law's lips, or seen in his eyes any expression other than that of icy reserve. He visibly took pleasure in Gabrielle's high spirits, and the wise woman resolved to seize the propitious moment, in order to clear up a point which lay very near her heart.
"Poor child, poor child!" she sighed, with well-simulated emotion. "Dancing on so merrily through life, and little dreaming of the serious, perhaps sorrowful, future in store for her! A well-born, portionless girl! It is a bitter lot, and doubly bitter for one who, like Gabrielle, has been brought up with great expectations. She will find this out soon enough!"
The manœvre succeeded beyond all anticipation. Raven, whom in general nothing would move, seemed for once to be in pliable mood, for he turned round and said, in a quick, decided manner:
"What do you mean by a 'sorrowful future,' Matilda? You know that I have neither children nor relatives of my own. Gabrielle will be my heiress, and therefore there can be no question of poverty for her."
A gleam of triumph shone in the Baroness's eyes, as she thus obtained the assurance she had long so ardently desired.
"You have never declared your intentions," she remarked, concealing her satisfaction with an effort: "and I, naturally, could not touch on such a subject. Indeed, the whole matter was so foreign to my thoughts----"
"Has it really never occurred to you to speculate on the chances of my death, or on the will I might leave?" interrupted the Baron, giving full play now to the sarcasm he had hitherto partially restrained.
"My dear Arno, how can you imagine such a thing?" cried the lady, deeply wounded.
He paid no heed to this little outburst of indignation, but went on quietly:
"I trust that you have not spoken to Gabrielle on the subject"--he little knew that it had been almost a daily topic--"I do not wish that she should be taught to think of herself as an heiress; still less do I wish that this girl of seventeen should make my will and my fortune the objects of her calculations, as it is, of course, quite natural others should do."
The Baroness drew a deep sigh.
"I meet with nothing but misconception from you. You even cast suspicion on the promptings of a mother's love, and misjudge her who, without fear or care for herself, trembles for the future of an only child!"
"Not at all," said Raven, impatiently; he was evidently weary of the conversation. "You hear, I consider such anxiety natural, and therefore I repeat the assurance I have just given you. My property having come to me from my father-in-law, I intend that it shall one day descend to his grandchild. Should Gabrielle, as is probable, marry during my life-time, I shall provide for her dowry; at my death she will be, as I have said, my sole heiress."
The emphasis he laid on the word proved to the Baroness that for herself she had nothing to expect. Her daughter's future being assured, however, she might look on her own as secure also, and thus her double object was attained. The hardly-veiled contempt with which Raven treated her, and which Gabrielle's fine instinct had detected in the manner of his first welcome, was