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Countess Erika's Apprenticeship

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<h2>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> The next forenoon Erika was sitting in the low-ceilinged drawing-room. She was alone in the house. Lord Langley had announced his arrival during the forenoon, and the Countess Anna had gone out, to avoid being present at the meeting of the betrothed couple. The young girl's pulses throbbed to her fingertips; her eyes burned, her whole body felt sore and bruised, as if she had had a fall. For an hour she sat listening breathlessly. Would Goswyn come before Lord Langley arrived? Should she have a moment in which to speak to him? Ah, how she longed for it! She wanted to explain to him---- At last she heard a step on the stair: of course it was Lord Langley. No, no! Lord Langley's step was neither so quick nor so light: it was Goswyn; she could hear him speaking with Lüdecke, and the old servant, with the garrulous want of tact at which she had so often laughed, was explaining to him that her Excellency had gone out, but that the Countess Erika had stayed at home to receive Lord Langley. Erika listened, and heard Goswyn say, in a clear, cold tone, "In that case I will not disturb the Countess. Tell her----" She could endure it no longer, but, opening the door, called, "Goswyn!" "Countess!" He bowed formally. "Come in for one moment, I entreat you," she begged, involuntarily clasping her hands. Of course he could not but obey. They confronted each other, she trembling in every limb, he erect and unbending as she had never before seen him. In his hand he held a small packet. "There, Countess," he said, "I am convinced that these are all the letters which this Herr von Strachinsky ever received from your mother: some of the epistles with which he edified my amiable aunt and her guests were the productions of his own pen. But you may rest assured that while I live he will not be guilty of any further indiscretion in that direction." There was such a look of determination in his eyes as he spoke that Erika easily guessed by what means he had contrived to intimidate Strachinsky. She was filled with the warmest gratitude towards him, but there was something so repellent in his air that, instead of any extravagant expression of it, she stood before him without being able to utter a word of thanks. Instead, she fingered in an embarrassed way the packet which he had given her, a very little packet, wrapped in a sheet of paper and sealed with a huge coat of arms. In her confusion she fixed her eyes upon this seal. "The arms of the Barons von Strachinsky," Goswyn explained. "Pray observe the delicacy with which the very letters read aloud for the entertainment of Heaven only knows how many gossiping old women are sealed up carefully lest I should read them." Erika smiled faintly. "It is hardly necessary that you should be understood by Strachinsky," she said. "Men always judge from their own point of view. You judged me by yourself, and consequently estimated me more highly than I deserved. Sit down for a moment, I pray you." "I do not wish to intrude," he said, bluntly, almost discourteously. "How could you intrude? You never can intrude." "Not even when you are expecting your betrothed?" He looked her full in the face. She blushed scarlet; a burning desire to regain his esteem took possession of her. "You take an entirely false view of my position," she exclaimed. "Mine is not the betrothal of a sentimental school-girl. I--I" and she burst into a short, nervous laugh that shocked even herself--"I do not marry Lord Langley for love." There was a pause. Goswyn bowed his head; then, suddenly raising it, he looked straight into Erika's eyes in a way which made her very uncomfortable, and said, "I guessed that; but why, then, do you marry him,--you, a young, pure, gifted girl, and a man with such a past as Lord Langley's? I know that no man is worthy of such a girl as you are; but, good God, there is some difference---- Why, why do you marry him?" "Why? why?" She tried to collect herself and to answer him truly. "I marry him because the position he offers me suits me,--because one is condemned to marry at a certain age, if one would not be sneered at and ridiculed; I marry him because he is an old man and will not require of me any warmth of affection, and because I have determined that there shall be nothing romantic in my marriage. Ah," with a glance at the small packet in her hand, "after all that you know of my wretched experience, you ought to understand why I do not choose to marry for love." A long silence followed. He looked at her as he had never hitherto done, searchingly, inquiringly. Suddenly his glance grew tender: it expressed intense pity. "I understand that you talk of love and marriage as a blind man talks of colours," he said, slowly. "I understand that you unwittingly contemplate the commission of a crime against yourself, and that you should be prevented from it." He ceased speaking on a sudden, and bit his lip. A voice was heard in the hall,--the characteristic voice of an old English bon viveur with a Continental training. "Is the Countess at home?" "What am I doing here?" Goswyn exclaimed, and, without touching the hand extended to him, he turned on his heel and was gone. Outside the door stood an old gentleman with a tall white hat and a dark-blue cravat spotted with white. One glance of rage and curiosity Goswyn darted at the correct florid profile and white whiskers, and then he rushed down-stairs like one possessed. Yes, he had not been mistaken. It was the same Englishman whom he had once seen at Monaco with a most disreputable train. Then he was travelling under an assumed name,--Mr. Steyne: his English regard for appearances forbade him in such society to profane his title and his social dignity. Goswyn's blood fairly boiled in his veins. When, some time afterwards, Countess Lenzdorff entered the drawing-room, after her walk, Lord Langley, rather redder in the face than usual, and with a baffled, puzzled expression of countenance, was sitting in an arm-chair; Erika, very pale, with sparkling eyes and very red lips, strikingly beautiful, and evidently tingling in every nerve, was in another on the other side of a table between the pair, upon which was an open jewel-case containing a diamond necklace. The Countess suspected that some kind of disagreement had arisen between the couple, and, as soon as she had returned Lord Langley's greeting, asked, carelessly, what it had been. "Oh, nothing to speak of," he replied. "My queen was a little ungracious; but even that has a charm. A perfectly docile woman is as tiresome as a quiet horse: there is no pleasure in either unless there is some caprice to subdue." Erika's grandmother bestowed a keen, observant glance, first upon the speaker, and then upon her grand-daughter, after which she remarked, dryly, "If we wish for any dinner we had better betake ourselves to 'The Sun.'" <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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