As far as my private life is concerned, one incident only on this expedition is of moment. We paid a visit to my father's cousins, the Bartensteins, who possessed a singularly charming place in Tirol. The Duke was moderately rich, very able, and very indolent. He was a connoisseur in music and the arts. His wife, my Cousin Elizabeth, was a very good-natured woman of seven or eight and thirty, noted for her dairy and fond of out-of-door pursuits; her devotion to these last had resulted in her complexion being rather reddened and weather-beaten. We were to stay a week, an unusually long halt; and even before we arrived I detected a simple slyness in my good Vohrenlorf's demeanour. When a secret was afoot, Vohrenlorf's first apparent effort was to draw everybody's attention to the fact of its existence. Out of perversity I asked no questions, and left him to seethe in his over-boiling mystery. I knew that I should be enlightened soon enough. I was quite right; before I had been a day with my relatives it became obvious that Elsa was the mystery. I suppose that it is not altogether a common thing for a youth of eighteen, feeling himself a man, trying to think himself one, just become fully conscious of the power and attraction of the women he meets, to be shown a child of twelve, and given to understand that in six years' time she will be ready to become his wife. The position, even if not as uncommon as I suppose, is curious enough to justify a few words of description.
I saw Elsa first as she was rolling down a hill, with a scandalized governess in full chase. Elsa rolled quickly, marking her progress by triumphant cries. She "brought up" at the foot of the slope in an excessively crumpled state; her short skirts were being smoothed down when her mother and I arrived. She was a pretty, fair, blue-eyed child, with a natural merriment about her attractive enough. She was well made, having escaped the square solidity of figure that characterized Cousin Elizabeth. Her features were still in an undeveloped condition, and her hair, brushed smooth and plastered down on her forehead, was tormented into ringlets behind. She looked at my lanky form with some apprehension.
"You didn't know Cousin Augustin was looking on, did you?" asked her mother.