Conrad was unusually busy while he thus spoke. He set the chairs to the table, pulled them back, that he might wipe them off with his brown hand, and then set them up again. Again and again he put wood on the fire, so that the fire crackled and the flame went roaring up the chimney. For no definite reason, except that it had to be so, he kicked his wolfhound, Pluto, while she, having just come in, kept blinking at Catherine with her large yellow eyes. He himself did not look at the strange girl, and when his glance accidentally passed over her face he became red and embarrassed, and speedily turned his eyes away again.
In this way he acted during the whole meal. He talked, stood up, sat down again, tried to put things in order, but brought them into greater confusion, so that Lambert became red in the face and thanked the Lord when he saw Catherine smiling in a friendly way. She thought she could interpret Conrad's conduct in his favor. It was apparent enough that it had not made an unfavorable impression on the young and beautiful girl. It cost her no trouble now and again to return a friendly word to his talk. Lambert was astonished, and it sounded strange to him as she once laughed in the same cheerful, soft tone in which she spoke. He had not heard her laugh once during her whole journey.
So he sat there full of thankful joy that everything had turned out so well after he had been very despondent and was filled with secret unrest like one who, having with difficulty escaped a great danger, does not venture to yield to the feeling of security and seems to feel the ground shaking under his feet.
But as the meal was now drawing to a close another care began to press upon him with increasing weight. During the journey, in the farm-houses which they entered, which were often very small, it had happened more than once that he had passed the night in the same room with the family and his companion. Two or three nights when they could reach no human habitation they had taken their rest in the forest, and he had seen the beloved maiden by the light of the camp-fire sleeping peacefully, while he looked up through the tops of the trees and thanked God that he was permitted to watch over her slumber. But this occurred on the journey--an unusual condition, which could not and should not last. There was in the upper story a store-room partitioned off, in which one of the brothers used to sleep, while the other had his simple couch in a small recess in the lower room. The brothers had hit upon this arrangement the preceding year, when the inroads of the French necessitated redoubled watchfulness. Afterwards, though the danger was over, they had kept up the custom until Lambert's departure. Lambert had thought of each room for Catherine, but Conrad had mentioned during the meal that, on his eight-days' excursion, he had learned that the French were stirring again. Consequently renewed watchfulness was necessary, and that since Lambert must be very tired from his journey, he would undertake the watch for that night.