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As he glanced from Vivie and her face of agonized appeal to the steadfast gaze which Bertie fixed on her, as on some fairy godmother, his own eyes filled with tears as indeed they did many, many times over the tragic scenes of the German Terror. Another request. Could Vivie see or communicate with Gräfin von Stachelberg? with Pasteur Walcker? Here the police agent intervened "Nothing of the kind!
The Grafin, who had recovered her calm in the presence of her inferiors of the middle classes, put up her eyeglasses and examined them with interest and indulgence. Helena stared. The cousin twisted his little moustache, standing beside us protectingly, very elegant and slender and nonchalant, and remarked at intervals, "Fabelhafte Enthusiasmus, was?"
They don't say so, any of them, neither the Graf, nor the Grafin, nor the son Werner who was here yesterday nor Bernd's Colonel who dined here last night, nor any of the other people. Government officials who come to see the Graf, and women friends who come to see the Grafin.
I know it isn't proper for a junges Madchen to talk at dinner unless she is asked a question, and I know she mustn't have an opinion about anything except bonbons and flowers, and I also know that a junges Madchen who is betrothed is expected to show on all occasions such extreme modesty, such a continuous downcast eye, that it almost amounts to being ashamed of herself; yet I couldn't resist leaning across the table to the man who said that, a high official in the Ministerium des Innern, and saying "But your public is so disciplined and your Government so almighty " and was going on to ask him what grounds he had for his fears that a public in that condition would force the Government's hand, for I was interested and wanted dreadfully to hear what he would say, when the Grafin slipped in, smiling gently.
The white-gloved butler advanced in a sort of stately goose-step with another spoon, which he placed on the dish being handed to me, and a third menial of lesser splendour but also white-gloved brought a cloth and wiped up the mess, and the Grafin became more terribly and volubly kind than ever. Helena's eyes never wavered. They were still on my ear.
It was so still that we could hear the throb of a steamer far away on the Haff, crossing from Stettin to Swinemunde. The Graf, as usual, said nothing, "He has much to think of," the Grafin whispered to me.
You know how sometimes when everybody has been talking together without stopping there's a sudden hush. That happened to-night, and after what seemed a long while of silence the Grafin said to Kloster, "I suppose, Master, it would be too much to ask you to play to us?" "Here?" he said. "Out here?" "Why not?" she said. I hung breathless on what he would say.
Sebastian did not notice that the door was open and all the guests were waiting for him to lead the way. "Now, old dreamer," whispered Desiree, with a quick pinch on his arm, "take the Grafin upstairs to the drawing-room and give her wine. You are to drink our healths, remember." "Is there wine?" he asked with a vague smile. "Where has it come from?"
Suppose he played, out there in the dusk, with the stars and the water and the forest all round us, what would it be like? He got up without a word and went indoors. The Grafin looked uneasy. "I hope," she said to Frau Kloster, "my asking has not offended him?" But Bernd knew Bernd, still at that moment only Herr von Inster for me. "He is going to play," he said.
"You must go to your mother at once tomorrow," he said. "Before you're noticed, before there's been time to make your going difficult." I told him the Grafin had asked me to leave, and I was coming here tonight. He wasted no words on the Koseritzes, but was anxious lest Frau Berg mightn't wish to take me in now.
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