THE DISCUSSION.
“OH, Hildegarde!” cried Crescenz, pushing back her work-table in order
to be able to see better from the window. “Oh, Hildegarde—look, look!
There is Mr. Hamilton driving such a beautiful sledge up our street; and
the horses are prancing and dancing, and shaking their red tassels and
silver bells! Oh, how pretty! How I wish he would take me out with him!”
“Babette!” cried Mr. Rosenberg, from the next room, “Mr. Hamilton is
just passing our house, and seems in perfect health. How long do you
mean his quarantine to last?”
“I have no objection to his returning to-morrow,” answered Madame
Rosenberg, who was arranging one of the chests of drawers in the
drawing-room. “You may tell him so, if you like, this afternoon.”
“Not I!” said her husband. “You banished him, and you may recall him,
too; if, however, you really wish him to return, you had better make
haste, for he seems to be amusing himself very well at Havard’s, and is
always surrounded by a number of acquaintances. I must confess I miss
him more than I expected.”
“I wish him to return, of course,” said Madame Rosenberg, pushing in the
drawers with some violence; “but, for another week or so, I must say I
have no objection to his remaining where he is. I can hardly believe
that he will escape the cholera—he is so careless! Always going out
without a cloak, and being wet through!—wearing thin boots and no
flannel waistcoat! Heating his stove and opening his windows! Running
out in the middle of the night every time there is an alarm about a
house on fire! What can one expect from such doings?”
“As you please, my dear,” said Mr. Rosenberg, contentedly. “You know I
never had any fancy for lodgers in our house; he is the first I have
been able to tolerate. I think, however, you should not allow him to pay
for his apartments here and at Havard’s too!”
“Oh, of course not,” said his wife; “though I am sure that is the very
last thing he would think about—he is excessively careless about money.”
“So it seems—and I suspect he is spending more than is necessary at
present. He gives suppers every night.”
“I don’t believe that!”
“You may believe it—or rather believe me, for I supped with him after
the theatre yesterday.”
“You?”
“Yes. There were also three young Englishmen and that little
Lieutenant-major who goes everywhere, playing cards and making himself
agreeable.”
“Lieutenant-major! How did Hamilton become acquainted with him?”
“Oddly enough; he met him in the English Gardens one evening before he
went to Seon, and either knocked him down or was knocked down by him—I
really forget which; but a fact it is that Hamilton invited him to
supper without remembering his name, and they insisted on my introducing
them formally to each other.”
“Well, to be sure!” said Madame Rosenberg. “If ever I heard of such a
thing!”
“He wishes exceedingly to return to us,” continued her husband; “he said
so when I was leaving—indeed, he gave me to understand that his guests
were merely invited to prevent him from thinking too much of our quiet
household!”
“Oh, if that be the case, I consider it a sort of duty to bring him back
here and out of the way of temptation,” said Madame Rosenberg, joining
her husband, and leaving Hildegarde and Crescenz alone.
They had been interested auditors of this conversation as they sat
together working.
“How I like him for inviting that Lieutenant-major to supper without
knowing his name! Don’t you? It is so English! I am very glad he is
coming back to us!”
“His return ought to be a matter of indifference to you,” said
Hildegarde, without looking up.
“But I cannot be so indifferent as you are!” said Crescenz, petulantly.
“And, though I am going to be married to Major Stultz, Lina Berger says
that Mr. Hamilton may still be ‘_mein schatz_’ just the same, and no
harm!”
“Lina Berger talks great nonsense,” said Hildegarde, with heightened
colour. “This is, however, worse than nonsense.”
“And yet she could give you some good advice, if you choose to listen to
her,” observed Crescenz, nodding her head sagaciously.
“I do not require any advice from a person I so thoroughly dislike and
despise.”
“Oh, that’s just the same with her; she says she always disliked you,
but that she despises you now that you have fallen in love with Theodor
Biedermann!”
“What an absurd idea!” said Hildegarde, contemptuously. “Marie de
Hoffmann has already told me something of that kind.”
“Lina told me long ago that Mr. Biedermann did not think you at all
handsome!”
“That I think very probable,” said Hildegarde.
“And she says now, he is just the person to teach you not to fall in
love without provocation!”
“I think he is more likely to teach me to write German grammatically,”
answered Hildegarde, with a careless laugh.
“And do you really not care for anybody, and you a whole year older than
I am!” exclaimed Crescenz, with unfeigned astonishment. “Lina first
thought you liked Mr. Hamilton, until I assured her you hated him. Then
she said you had taken a wild kind of fancy to our cousin Oscar. Then
she thought you were pretending to like Count Zedwitz on account of his
rank and——”
“I am sure I ought to be obliged to you, Crescenz, for discussing my
affairs in this manner with my great enemy,” said Hildegarde,
indignantly.
“Oh, don’t be angry. I assure you she talked all herself. I did not say
a single word——”
“You forget having confessed that you told her all I confided to you
about Count Zedwitz.”
“But you never confided in me at all, Hildegarde! All I know was what I
overheard when you were so angry about the letter, you know!”
“I remember speaking to you about that letter, and telling you to
rejoice that you had never any annoyance of the kind.”
“But I assure you, Lina had heard everything from the Doctor——”
“Pshaw!” cried Hildegarde, pushing back her chair, “there is no use
talking to you!”
“I am quite prepared for remarks of this kind,” said Crescenz, with a
ludicrous imitation of Hildegarde’s natural dignity of manner; “Lina
says there is no bearing you since I have been engaged to be married!”
“So,” said Hildegarde, throwing down her work; “but I do not quite
understand the——”
“Oh, it is easily understood—you are older, and think you ought to have
been first.”
“This is really too absurd,” cried Hildegarde, laughing good-humouredly.
“Oh, laugh as much as you please—but since we have returned from
Seon—you have become quite a different person!”
“Did Lina put that into your head also?” asked Hildegarde, quickly.
“Oh, no,” cried Crescenz, while her eyes filled with tears, “I did not
require Lina to point that out to me. Silly as you think me—I can
feel—you are quite changed.”
Hildegarde bit her lip—walked to the window—came hastily back again, and
throwing her arms round her sister, kissed her cheek, while she
whispered: “Dear girl, I am not in the least changed in my affection for
you; but you know yourself that every word I speak to you is repeated to
Lina Berger; and how can you expect me to trust you?”
“But,” said Crescenz, looking up, “but you know I often repeated what
you said when we were at school, and you only scolded a little
sometimes. Now you scarcely ever get into a passion, and are so cold and
so careful what you say—just like Mademoiselle Hortense!”
“Like Mademoiselle Hortense?”
“Oh, I don’t mean that you have her thick nose and high shoulders,” said
Crescenz, smiling through her tears, “but you scarcely take any notice
of me, and are always talking of books with Hamilton!” Hildegarde was
silent. “And then you speak English now more than French, and Lina
says——”
“Don’t tell me what she says, don’t name her to me again,” cried
Hildegarde, impatiently.
“No—no, I won’t,” said Crescenz, alarmed.
“Odious person,” continued Hildegarde, turning away, “I can never
forgive her for having embittered the last weeks we shall probably ever
spend together.”
“Well,” said Crescenz, drying her eyes, “at all events, we shall get on
better after my marriage. You know you must have a sort of respect for
me then.”
Hildegarde turned round to see if her sister were joking; but Crescenz
looked perfectly serious.
“Respect is due to married persons,” she continued, neatly folding up
the work which her sister had thrown on the chair. “Mamma says so—and
then, you know, I shall be quite another sort of person, when I am the
mother of a family——”
Hildegarde laughed unrestrainedly.
“Madame Lustig says I may have a dozen children! They shall all have
pretty names—not one of them shall be called Blazius, that I am
determined—they shall be Albert, Maximilian, Ferdinard, Adolph,
Philibert.”
“Philibert is not a pretty name,” said Hildegarde, interrupting her
merrily.
“Don’t you think so? Well, we can choose another, Conrad for instance?”
“Or Oscar?”
“Oh, no, because I should imagine a sort of resemblance to cousin Oscar,
and I don’t—quite like him—that is, not very much, though he is my
cousin. He is very cross sometimes, indeed almost always to your friend
Marie—but, oh! Hildegarde, one very pretty name we have forgotten, and
of a very handsome person too—Alfred! Mr. Hamilton, you know—is not
Alfred a pretty name?”
“Yes.”
“And he is certainly handsome? Even you must allow that?”
Hildegarde was spared the answer, for Madame Rosenberg entered the room,
and having discovered that the tip of Crescenz’s little nose was red,
immediately declared it was from want of exercise, and sent both sisters
to play at battledore and shuttlecock in the nursery with their
brothers.
She then despatched a messenger to Hamilton which caused his immediate
return to her house.
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