"Not that I know of. We had scarcely driven through the promenade when she suddenly called out, 'Home!'"
"Something's wrong. Perhaps she's in love. Did you meet any one who did not seem pleased enough to see her?"
"What queer ideas you have, Nanette! She never thinks of such things,--never looks at a man. With all her millions she's twenty-two and unmarried. She might furnish a worsted-shop with all the mittens she's given the men, if she could collect them."
"Of course any one as rich as she can give as many mittens as she chooses; there are always men enough to hanker after money, but there are some who don't care for it."
"And that's true enough, Nanette," Wilhelm replied, with a grin. "Now here am I, who never think of money when I see such a pretty face as yours."
Nanette rewarded the compliment with her best smile. "But then you're different from most of these grand gentlemen. Still, some have ideas of their own. Now there's Count Waldheim, whom I used to see every day when I lived with the Privy Councillor's lady, Frau von Sturmhaupt. This princess of ours might throw her millions at his feet and he wouldn't stoop to pick them up. All the money in the world wouldn't persuade him to look at any one who had not a 'von' to her name."
"You're out there, Nanette. Count Waldheim comes here often, and likes our Fräulein extremely well. It is 'charming Fräulein Schommer,' and 'lovely Fräulein Schommer,' and she treats him better than any of the young men who come here."
"Count Waldheim visits here?" Nanette asked, in surprise. "Well, I wouldn't have thought it;--and our princess likes him? I'll lay my head she's in love with him, and he wouldn't have her if she had shovelfuls of money. I bet you she met him to-day when she was out driving, and he never bowed to her."
"Out again, Nanette! We didn't meet him, but we saw him; he was sitting at Büchner's under the awning with Herr von Bertram, the nephew of your old mistress, Frau von Sturmhaupt, and he bowed so low that he almost bumped his nose against the bar of the balustrade. Fräulein Eva has no heart-ache for him, nor for any of the rest of them; they all bow when she drives past, as if she were a princess. Only one man sat still and read the newspaper without looking at us; but he does not visit here, and I don't think our Fräulein knows him."
"Indeed! Who was he?"