When they at
last drew up in the courtyard, with the flush of youth and exercise
in their faces, Paul felt he was the object of envy to the
loungers, and of fresh gossip to Strudle Bad. It struck him less
pleasantly that two dark faces, which had been previously regarding
him in the gloom of the corridor and vanished as he approached,
reappeared some moments later in Yerba's salon as Don Caesar and
Dona Anna, with a benignly different expression. Dona Anna
especially greeted him with so much of the ostentatious archness of
a confident and forgiving woman to a momentarily recreant lover,
that he felt absurdly embarrassed in Yerba's presence. He was
thinking how he could excuse himself, when he noticed a beautiful
basket of flowers on the table and a tiny note bearing a baron's
crest. Yerba had put it aside with--as it seemed to him at the
moment--an almost too pronounced indifference--and an indifference
that was strongly contrasted to Dona Anna's eagerly expressed
enthusiasm over the offering, and her ultimate supplications to
Paul and her brother to admire its beauties and the wonderful taste
of the donor.
All this seemed so incongruous with Paul's feelings, and above all
with the recollection of his scene with Yerba, that he excused
himself from dining with the party, alleging an engagement with his
old fellow-traveler the German officer, whose acquaintance he had
renewed.
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