The gentlemen in the other carriage had had no reason to complain of want of fresh air. After the heavy rain it had really grown cold; and though their almost constantly uphill road lay mostly through thick woods, where the great beeches gave them some shelter, the east wind struck them all the more sharply at the open parts which they had to pass. The Count was freezing, notwithstanding his cloak; and he took for mere perversity or bravado Reinhold's assurance that he was too much inured to wind and weather to feel cold now, and that he really did not require the rug offered to him. The fellow was a most unnecessary and burdensome addition to the party. On his account he had given up the fourth seat in the close carriage, and therewith the neighbourhood of that charming girl, very likely quite unnecessarily. In the haste with which, on his return from shooting, he had read the President's note, he had taken the captain spoken of for some aide-de-camp or other member of the General's staff, to whom he must of course pay proper attention. He had now discovered, to his astonishment, that he was only a merchant captain, whose acquaintance with the rest of the party was but a few hours old, who appeared to have been of some small service during the passage from the steamer to the shore; and who, if it was necessary to take him with them at all, might have found a place in the luggage-cart. What was he to say to the fellow? Was there any occasion indeed for speaking to him at all? The Count came to the conclusion that there was no occasion, and that he did more than could be required of him in letting fall from time to time a few words about the roads, the weather, or such matters. Reinhold, who did not feel quite sure if these brief utterances were fragments of a soliloquy, or awkward attempts to begin a conversation, answered when it seemed required of him, and at other times pursued his own thoughts. There, on the dusky background of the wind-stirred trees, he saw her again as he had seen her to-day for the first time against the blue of the morning sky. Again he saw the slight graceful figure, and the fair face with its delicate yet expressive features; again the brown eyes shone upon him which had looked at him so mockingly and fearlessly, and then so gravely and severely.