Lucie had no suspicion of the attraction that took Celia to the forest, nor that the simple-hearted girl could have a secret from her. She took delight in her charming pupil's tender affection for her, which indeed she reciprocated with all her heart.
The old Freiherr had greatly changed since Lucie's coming to Castle Hohenwald: he had grown social. True, his sociability was confined to a desire for the society of his immediate family circle, among whom he reckoned, of course, Fräulein Anna Müller; but with them he developed a genial courtesy that astonished his sons.
Arno, on the other hand, preserved the same attitude towards his sister's governess that he had adopted upon her first arrival at the castle; he was conscious of an involuntary thrill of delight when, in the course of conversation, or upon an accidental encounter in their walks, Fräulein Müller bestowed upon him one of her rare sweet smiles; but the next moment he would rouse himself to renewed hatred of the entire sex, bethinking himself that this very enchanting smile was bit a trap set by overweening love of admiration, and could avail nothing with him. And yet he could not avoid her. When Lucie, occupied with some bit of feminine work, seated herself at the table beside the Baron's rolling-chair and talked pleasantly with the old man and Celia, Arno would join the circle, placing his chair where, unobserved, he could watch every change of expression on the lovely face. He spoke but little, but not a word of hers escaped him,--especially did he watch and listen when, as was but rarely the case, she appealed to Werner.
Why was he so pleased at the coldness and reserve of her usual manner towards his brother? Why should he be so much annoyed when one day Werner announced that he had just received a favourable reply from his chief in office to his request for a prolongation of his leave of absence? Wherefore should Werner have seemed to him absolutely insufferable since he had taken to paying such marked court to Fräulein Müller?
Arno had never been upon terms of close intimacy with his brother,--theirs were antagonistic natures; but now he felt an absolute repugnance to him for which there was no accounting; surely it was nothing to him if Werner chose to pay court to Celia's beautiful governess.