'I have a plan in regard to Giuliana, Franz, which I shall tell you to-morrow. To-night I do not feel in spirits to enter on the subject. Farewell!'
So saying, the young count left him, and when Giuliana entered shortly after with the wine, she found her father alone, and asked why Count Otto had gone away in such a hurry, and without even bidding her farewell.
'He had business to attend to, my child,' replied her father; 'but he intends to remain at Soröe to-night, and he will pay us another visit before he goes away.'
'What! is he going away so soon?' sighed Giuliana. 'I thought he meant to have stayed some time among us.'
'Have you, then, much pleasure in the thought of seeing him, my daughter?' asked Franz.
'Oh yes, yes! he is my dear old playfellow, and it seems to me as if we had always known each other. If he had not been so tall, and also a count, a nobleman of high rank, I would actually have embraced him when he came in so suddenly, and told me he was little Otto.'
'Never forget, my child, to behave to him with the respectful distance which becomes the difference between his situation and ours,' said Franz gravely, and fell into a gloomy mood.
In the hope of enlivening him, Giuliana took up the little Italian mandolin which her father had brought from her native land, and sang, in the language of that foreign country, Franz's favourite song, which ran as follows:--
'If life's joys thou wouldst find, 'Twere well oft to be blind, Let the changeful hours roll as they may. The stranger who goes, Where the summer wind blows, Dreads to think of a dark wintry day.
'The stranger who goes, Where the summer wind blows, Dreams that brightness and beauty shall last. But too oft as he strays, Where life's fountain plays, He turns with regret to the past.
'Yet sometimes he strays, Where life's fountain plays, And pleasures unfading are met. Where the balmy breeze sighs, 'Neath the soft Southern skies, His soul can all sorrow forget!'
The next day Count Otto came again. Contrary to his usual custom, Franz remained at home, and he sought, by lively conversation and jovial manners, to efface the remembrance of the painful scene of the previous evening. He seemed determined to entertain his guest himself without any assistance from Giuliana, with whom Otto had, therefore, very little communication. Thus several days passed, yet the young count did not seem to think of his departure, although Franz often reminded him of it by drinking to his safe journey home.