Frau von Greifenstein had seated herself in a straw chair with her parasol, her fan and her lap-dog, a little toy terrier which was always suffering from some new and unheard-of nervous complaint, and on which the sensitive lady lavished all the care she could spare from herself. The miserable little creature shivered all summer, and lay during most of the winter half paralysed with cold in a wadded basket before the fire. It snapped with pettish impotence at every one who approached it, including its mistress, and the house was frequently convulsed because there was too much salt in its soup or too little sugar in its tea. Greifenstein’s pointers generally regarded it with silent scorn, but occasionally, when it was being petted with more than usual fondness, they would sit up before it, thrust out their long tongues and shake their intelligent heads, with a grin that reached to their ears, and which was not unlike the derisively laughing grimace of a street-boy. Greifenstein never took any notice of the little animal, but on the other hand he was exceedingly careful not to disturb it. He probably considered it as a sort of familiar spirit attached to his wife’s being. Had he been an ancient Egyptian instead of a modern German, he would doubtless have performed a weekly sacrifice to it, with the same stiff but ready outward courtesy, and prompted by the same inward adherence to the principles of household peace, which so pre-eminently characterised him.
The Lady of Sigmundskron had neither parasol, nor lap-dog, nor fan. Her plain grey dress, made almost as simply as a nun’s, contrasted oddly with the profusion of expensive bad taste displayed in her hostess’s attire, as her serious white face and quiet noble eyes were strangely unlike Frau von Greifenstein’s simpering, nervous countenance. The latter lady would certainly have been taken at first sight for the younger of the two, though she was in reality considerably older, but a closer examination showed an infinite number of minute lines, about the eyes, about the mouth, and even on her cheeks, not to mention that tell-tale wrinkle, the sign manual of advancing years, which begins just in front of the lobe of the ear and cuts its way downwards and backwards, round the angle of the jaw. There was a disquieting air of improbability, too, about some of the colouring in her face, though it was far from apparent that she was painted. Her hair, at all events, was her own and was not dyed. And yet, though she possessed an abundance of it, such as many a girl might have envied, it remained utterly uninteresting and commonplace, for its faded straw-like colour was not attractive to the eye, and it grew so awkwardly and so straight as to put its possessor to much trouble in the arrangement of the youthful ringlets she thought so becoming to her style. These, however, she never relinquished under any circumstances whatever. Nevertheless, at a certain distance and in a favourable light, the whole effect was youngish, though one could not call it youthful, the more so as Frau von Sigmundskron who sat beside her was, at little over forty, usually taken for an old lady.
For some moments after they had all sat down, no one spoke. Then Greifenstein suddenly straightened himself, as though an idea had occurred to him, and bending stiffly forward in his seat, addressed his cousin.
‘It gives us the greatest pleasure to see you once more in our circle,’ he said emphatically.
Frau von Sigmundskron looked up from her fine needlework, and gracefully inclined her head.
‘You are very kind,’ she answered. ‘You know how happy we are to be with you.’
‘Ah, it is too, too delightful!’ cried Frau von Greifenstein, with sudden enthusiasm, covering the toy terrier with her hand at the same time, as though anticipating some nervous movement on his part at the sound of her voice. The dog stirred uneasily and uttered a feeble little growl, turned round on her lap, bit his tail, and then settled himself to rest again. The lady watched all these movements with anxious interest, smoothing the folds of her dress at the spot on which the beast was about to lay his head.
‘Ah! my beloved, my treasure!’ she murmured in a strident whisper. ‘Did I wake you! Dear, dear Pretzel! Do go to sleep! I call him Pretzel,’ she added, looking up with a wild smile, ‘because when he is curled up, with his little legs together, on his side, he is just the shape of those little twisted rolls my husband likes with his beer. It is a vulgar name, yes—but this is a vulgar age, dear cousin, you know, and we must not be behind our times!’
‘Is it?’ asked Frau von Sigmundskron without taking her eyes from her work.
‘Oh, dreadfully so! Is it not, Hugo? I am sure I have heard you say so.’
‘Without doubt, the times are changed,’ replied Greifenstein. ‘But I suppose that what is modern will always seem vulgar to old-fashioned people.’
‘Ah, you do not call me old-fashioned, dear husband? Do you? Really, if I am old-fashioned, the times must have advanced very, very quickly! Eh? Dearest cousin, he calls us old-fashioned! You and me! Aber nein! How is it possible!’
A fit of spasmodic, unnatural laughter shook her from the tip of her lace parasol to the toes of her small slippers, causing such a convulsion in the lap-dog’s mind that he sat up on her knees and joined his cries with hers, until he had succeeded in attracting her attention, when he was instantly caressed and kissed and petted, with expressions of the greatest anxiety for his comfort. In about thirty seconds, however, the noises suddenly ceased, Pretzel went to sleep again and his mistress sat looking at the swallows and the flitting butterflies, her weary features expressing nothing that could be connected with mirth, any more than if she had not laughed for years. The repose could not last long, but Greifenstein felt that it was refreshing. In five and twenty years of married life, by dint of never exhibiting any annoyance at his wife’s way of expressing herself, he had grown hardened against the disturbing effect of her smile and voice until he was really very little affected by either. So far as her conduct was concerned, he had never had anything to complain of, and since he had chosen her of his own free will, he considered that one part of his duty consisted in suffering her eccentricities with patience and calm. The idea that a German who called himself a gentleman should not do his duty never entered his mind. On the other hand, his imperturbable manner sometimes irritated his wife, and in justice to her it must be allowed that his conversation in her presence was often very constrained.
‘The next time you come to Greifenstein,’ he said, leaning forward again and speaking to his cousin, ‘it will be on the occasion of a very happy event.’
‘Yes,’ answered Frau von Sigmundskron with her gentle smile, ‘I hope so.’
‘I think that if you approve, and if your daughter has no objections—’
‘Objections!’ cried Frau von Greifenstein, suddenly waking from her reverie and turning her face to her companion’s with an engaging simper. ‘As if dear, sweet, beautiful Hilda could have any objections to marrying our Greif! Objections! Ah no, dear cousin, that youthful heart is already on fire!’
The words were uttered with such an affectation of softness that Pretzel did not move, as his mistress anxiously looked to see if he were awake when she had done speaking.
‘No,’ replied the other lady calmly. ‘She has none. But I do not think that was what my cousin Greifenstein meant.’
‘I meant that the marriage might take place early in the new year, if neither you nor your daughter had any objections,’ said Greifenstein.
‘But they have none—she has just told you so! Oh, Hugo, how dull men are, where love is concerned! Why should they object?’
‘Indeed, I cannot see any reason why they should not be married in January,’ said Hilda’s mother. But there was a shade of annoyance in her face, and she bit her lip a little as she bent over her work.
‘Very good, then,’ pursued Greifenstein, as though his
