There was one member who did not make his appearance on these evenings, although he was still in the city and apparently in just the mood for such festivities--namely, Angelos Stephanopulos. This or that one had encountered him, on foot or in a carriage, acting as knight to his lady, the Russian countess, who had been away for a few months, but had now returned to that same private hotel where--though at some distance from the nocturnal musical orgies--Irene and her uncle were awaiting reassuring reports from Italy. Irene had satisfied the demands of etiquette by making a formal call upon her fellow-lodger, but had avoided any more intimate intercourse.
Upon this point her uncle had submitted all the more readily to his young governess because, at bottom, he felt more aversion than liking for all but martial or dancing music. But another promise which his strict little niece exacted from him, that he would never say a word to any one about her former relations to Felix, appeared to him so useless that he did not think it a matter of conscience to keep it any longer than while they were all such near neighbors in the country.
At his first meeting with Schnetz he informed his friend and brother-in-arms of the whole story.
He earnestly besought him to exert all his influence to rouse Felix from his dogged silence. Only a single visit from him--now, in the interesting paleness of convalescence--just to thank them for their sympathy during his illness; and the world must have turned topsy-turvy since he was young, if these two estranged lovers did not make up again.
Schnetz listened to these propositions with his usual morose calmness, abused his imperial terribly, and then remarked--that this commission was not to his taste. He had too great a regard for Felix to help him to a bride who could not love him just as he was, with all his faults and weaknesses. He doubted himself whether he should be doing the young man a favor if he did so. He was keeping house very comfortably out there in the solitary villa, going into the woods every day with Homo and a good double-barreled gun; and even though he did not shoot much, he unquestionably killed time after a much more manly fashion than if he were here striving to regain the favor and forgiveness of a spoiled princess. Besides, he was intending to put his affairs in order soon after Christmas, and then to set sail in the early spring; for he had taken it into his head that the air in America would agree with him better than that of his native land.