Here I found myself one Saturday evening in the
middle of June, having accepted the owner's invitation to stay over
Sunday with him. I rang the door-bell, and inquired for Mr. Pfeifer.
He had unexpectedly been called in to town, the servant informed me,
but would return presently; the young lady I would probably find in
the garden. As I was not averse to a _tete-a-tete_ with Miss Hildegard
just then, I threaded my way carefully among the flower-beds, whose
gorgeous medley of colors gleamed indistinctly through the twilight. A
long bar of deep crimson traced itself along the western horizon, and
here and there a star was struggling out from the faint, blue,
nocturnal dimness. Green and red and yellow lights dotted the surface
of the lake, and the waves beat, with a slow, gurgling rhythm, against
the strand beneath the garden fence; now and then the irrational
shrieks of some shrill-voiced little steamer broke in upon the
stillness like an inappropriately lively remark upon a solemn
conversation. I had half forgotten my purpose, and was walking
aimlessly on, when suddenly I was startled by the sound of human
voices, issuing apparently from a dense arbor of grape-vines at the
lower end of the walk.
"Why will you not believe me, darling?" some one was saying.
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