No Surrender. E. Werner
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Название: No Surrender
Автор: E. Werner
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 4064066142544
isbn:
"Ah; indeed; Rudolph Brunnow!" he repeated slowly.
"I do not know whether the name is familiar to your Excellency," George hazarded, but quickly repented of his hasty speech. The Baron's eyes met his, or rather, as Gabrielle expressed it, they bored him through and through, seeking to read the secrets of his inmost heart. There was a dark menace in that searching gaze that warned the young man to go no step further. He felt as though he were standing on the verge of an abyss.
"You are an intimate friend of Dr. Brunnow's son," Raven began again, after the pause of a second; "and therefore, in all probability, intimate with the father also."
"I only made the Doctor's acquaintance this summer, and though his views are occasionally warped by a certain harshness and bitterness, I found him an honourable and upright man, for whom I must entertain the greatest esteem."
"You would do wisely not to express your sentiments so openly," said the Baron, with frigid displeasure. "You are the servant of a State which has passed judgment on a certain class of political offenders, and still inexorably condemns them. You ought not to, and must not, consort familiarly with those who publicly proclaim themselves its enemies. Your position imposes on you duties before which all mere emotional feelings of friendship must give way. Remember that, Mr. Winterfeld."
George was silent. He understood that behind the icy calm of this address there lay a threat; understood, too, that the threat was levelled not at the official, but at the man who had been initiated into the secrets of a past which Raven had probably believed long buried and forgotten, and which now started up, phantom-like, before his eyes. Painful as it might be, the remembrance had not power to move the Baron for more than an instant. As he rose from his chair, and slightly waved his hand in token of dismissal, the old unapproachable haughtiness marked his bearing.
"You are warned now. That which has passed shall be overlooked, considered as a hasty error. That which you may do in future will be done at your own risk and peril."
George bowed in silence, and left the room. He felt now, as he had often felt before, that Dr. Brunnow had been right in warning him against the almost magic influence exercised by Raven over all who came in contact with him.
The young man, after the weighty disclosures which had been made to him, had felt he was entitled to look down from a lofty height on the traitor and the renegade; but the power to do so had gone from him as he re-entered the charmed circle surrounding that master-mind. Disdain could not hold its own before those eyes which so imperatively demanded obedience and compelled respect; it glanced off scathless from the man who carried his guilty head with so high and proud a mien, as though he recognised no judge over him or his actions.
Little as George allowed himself to be affected by the exalted position and imperious bearing of his superior, just as little could he escape the spell of that chief's intellectual ascendency. And yet he knew that sooner or later a struggle must come between himself and the Baron, who held in his hands Gabrielle's future, and, consequently, all his own chances of happiness. The secret could not be kept for ever--and what would happen when it should be known?
The image of his love rose up before the young man's eyes--of his love, of whom as yet he had caught no glimpse, though she had arrived the evening before, and at that moment the same roof covered them--and by its side appeared the iron inflexible countenance of him he had just left. Now, for the first time, he divined how severe would be the struggle by which he must hope to conquer all that he held dear in life.
CHAPTER IV.
Some weeks had passed. Baroness Harder and her daughter had made and received the necessary inauguratory visits, and the former lady had observed with much satisfaction the respect and deference everywhere shown them on the Governor's account. Still better pleased was she to discover that her brother-in-law really required nothing further from her than to play the hostess and dispense the hospitalities of the Castle; no troublesome or unpalatable duties were imposed on her, as she at first had feared might be the case. All care for, all the responsibility of, the great and strictly-ordered household devolved, now as before her coming, on an old major-domo who had filled the office for many years, and who regulated and directed everything, rendering account to his master alone. The Baron had probably had too good an insight into the management which had obtained in his sister-in-law's town establishment to grant her anything like independent action in such matters. Socially and ostensibly, she represented the mistress of the house, of which, in reality, she was but the guest. Some women might have felt the position in which she was thus placed a humiliating one, but a desire for domination was as foreign to the Baroness's mind as a sense of duties to be fulfilled. She was too superficial to understand either of these great motive-powers. Affairs were shaping themselves in a far more satisfactory manner than, after the catastrophe which followed her husband's death, she had had a right to expect. She was living with her daughter in the midst of luxury; the Baron had assigned to her a sum by no means inconsiderable for her personal expenses; Gabrielle was his acknowledged heiress. Taking all this into consideration, they might well, she argued, bear the constraint which was the unavoidable result of the situation.
Gabrielle, too, had quickly grown accustomed to her new surroundings. The grandeur and ceremony of the Government-house, the scrupulous punctuality and strict etiquette which there prevailed, the boundless respect and prompt service of the domestics, to whom the slightest gesture of the master's hand was a command--all this astonished the young lady, and impressed her with a certain awe. It certainly presented a striking contrast to the household system she had seen at work in her parents' city home, where the greatest external splendour and the greatest internal disorder reigned together, where the servants permitted to themselves all sorts of trickery and disrespectful negligence, where the claims of family life were lost sight of in the pursuit of pleasure. In later days, too, as the load of debt accumulated, and the difficulties grew more and more pressing, there had come violent scenes between Baron von Harder and his wife, scenes in which each accused the other of extravagance, while the common prodigal outlay went on unchecked. The half grown-up daughter was too often a witness of these altercations. At once spoiled and neglected by her parents, who liked to parade the pretty child, but, beyond this, concerned themselves but little about her, she lacked all serious training. Even the events of the last year, her father's death, and the subsequent collapse of their fortunes, had passed over the young girl's head, leaving scarcely a trace behind. Sorrow and pain seemed to have no hold on that sunny, volatile nature.
Sufficient judgment, however, Gabrielle did possess to see that the existent order of things in this parvenu's house was far more fitting and in better taste than that she had known at home, and she frequently tormented her mother with remarks on the subject.
The Baroness was sitting on the little sofa in her boudoir, turning over the leaves of a fashion-book. A great reception was to be held at the castle in the course of the next few days. The highly important question of what dresses should be worn was now awaiting decision, and both mother and daughter were zealously applying themselves to the study which had such attractions for at least one of them.
"Mamma," said Gabrielle, who was sitting by her mother, holding some stray leaves of the fashion-book. "Uncle Arno declared yesterday that these great parties were a troublesome duty, imposed on СКАЧАТЬ