tilia's cloud-pale windows were the sole greeting I had from her on my
departure early next morning, far wretcheder than if I had encountered a
misfortune. It was impossible for me to deny that my father had shielded
the princess: she would never have run for a menace. As he remarked, the
ringing of the bell would not of itself have forced her to retreat,
and the nature of the baroness's alarm demanded nothing less than a
conflagration to account for it to the household. But I felt humiliated
on Ottilia's behalf, and enraged on my own. And I had, I must confess, a
touch of fear of a man who could unhesitatingly go to extremities, as
he had done, by summoning fire to the rescue. He assured me that moments
such as those inspired him and were the pride of his life, and he
was convinced that, upon reflection, 'I should rise to his pitch.' He
deluded himself with the idea of his having foiled Baroness Turckems,
nor did I choose to contest it, though it struck me that she was too
conclusively the foiler. She must have intercepted the letter for the
princess. I remembered acting carelessly in handing it to my father for
him to consign it to one of the domestics, and he passed it on with a
flourish. Her place of concealment was singularly well selected under
the sofa-cover, and the little heaps of paper-bound volumes. I do not
fancy she meant to rouse the household; her notion probably was to
terrorize the princess, that she might compel her to quit my presence.
In rushing to the bell-rope, her impetuosity sent her stumbling on
it with force, and while threatening to ring, and meaning merely to
threaten, she rang; and as it was not a retractable act, she continued
ringing, and the more violently upon my father's appearance. Catching
sight of Peterborough at his heels, she screamed a word equivalent to a
clergyman. She had lost her discretion, but not her wits.

For any one save a lover--thwarted as I was, and perturbed by the shadow
falling on the princess--my father's Aplomb and promptness in conjuring
a check to what he assumed to be a premeditated piece of villany on
the part of Baroness Turckems, might have seemed tolerably worthy of
admiration. Me the whole scene affected as if it had burnt my skin. I
loathed that picture of him, constantly present to me, of his shivering
the glass of Ottilia's semi-classical night-lamp, gravely asking her
pardon, and stretching the flame to the curtain, with large eyes blazing
on the baron