Before fifteen minutes are over Stella is sound asleep. Rohritz wraps his plaid about her shoulders without her knowledge.
"She is tired out," he whispers. "I only hope her foot is not going to give her trouble. Were you very anxious?"
"My wife was almost beside herself. My sister took the matter, on the contrary, very quietly, until finally Stasy put some ridiculous ideas of impropriety into her head, and then she talked nonsense, alternately scolding you and the child, marching up and down the common room at the Wolfsegg inn like a bear in a cage, until I could bear it no longer, but left the entire party on the general's shoulders to be driven home, and set out in search of you. How did Stella behave herself? Did she give you any trouble?"
"She is a dear girl, is she not? Poor child! she really has had too much to bear. Of course I would not confess it to Stasy, but it is a fact that if any other man had been in your place I should have been excessively annoyed."
"My gray hair has been of immense advantage to your niece," Rohritz assured him. "The hostess at the ferry persisted in taking me for her father."
"Nonsense which at least showed me at the right moment precisely where I stood," Rohritz murmured. "And, between ourselves,--never allude to it again,--it was necessary."
The captain, who naturally enough sees nothing in his friend's words but an allusion to his altered circumstances, sighs, and thinks, "What a pity!"
When the three wanderers arrive, at Erlach Court a little after midnight, they find the rest in the dining-room, still sitting around the remains of a very much over-cooked dinner. Stasy, in a pink peignoir, hails Rohritz upon his entrance with, "I have won my bet,--six pair of Jouvin's gloves from Katrine. I wagered you would be late--ha! ha!"
"A fact easy to foresee, in view of the condition of the horses and the roads," Rohritz rejoins, frowning.
The affair, so far as it concerns Stella, who approaches her mother with fear and trembling, turns out fairly well. As the Baroness's natural feeling of maternal anxiety for her daughter's safety has only been temporarily disturbed by Stasy's insinuations, she forgets to scold Stella, in her joy at seeing her safe and sound. That she may not give way to an outburst of anger upon further consideration, and that an end may be put to Stasy's jests, the captain instantly plunges into a detailed account of all the mishaps that have befallen Stella and her escort.