Britta looked up and shook her head emphatically.
"Then," went on Güldmar, "when my girl came back the last time from France, Britta chanced to see her, and, strangely enough,"--here he winked shrewdly--"took a fancy to her face,--odd, wasn't it? However, nothing would suit her but that she must be Thelma's handmaiden, and here she is. Now you know her history,--she would be happy enough if her grandmother would let her alone; but the silly old woman thinks the girl is under a spell, and that Thelma is the witch that works it;"--and the old farmer laughed. "There's a grain of truth in the notion too, but not in the way she has of looking at it."
"All women are witches!" said Duprèz. "Britta is a little witch herself!"
Britta's rosy cheeks grew rosier at this, and she tossed her chestnut curls with an air of saucy defiance that delighted the Frenchman. He forgot his wounded cheek and his disfiguring bandages in the contemplation of the little plump figure, cased in its close-fitting scarlet bodice, and the tempting rosy lips that were in such close proximity to his touch.
"If it were not for those red hands!" he thought. "Dieu! what a charming child she would be! One would instantly kill the grandmother and kiss the granddaughter!"
And he watched her with admiration as she busied herself about the supper-table, attending to every one with diligence and care, but reserving her special services for Thelma, whom she waited on with a mingled tenderness, and reverence, that were both touching and pretty to see.
The conversation now became general, and nothing further occurred to disturb the harmony and hilarity of the party--only Errington seemed somewhat abstracted, and answered many questions that were put to him at haphazard, without knowing, or possibly caring, whether his replies were intelligible or incoherent. His thoughts were dreamlike and brilliant with fairy sunshine. He understood at last what poets meant by their melodious musings, woven into golden threads of song--he seemed to have grasped some hitherto unguessed secret of his being--a secret that filled him with as much strange pain as pleasure. He felt as though he were endowed with a thousand senses,--each one keenly alive and sensitive to the smallest touch,--and there was a pulsation in his blood that was new and beyond his control,--a something that beat wildly in his heart at the sound of Thelma's voice, or the passing flutter of her white garments near him. Of what use to disguise it from himself any longer? He loved her! The terrible, beautiful tempest of love had broken over his life at last; there was no escape from its thunderous passion and dazzling lightning glory.