“Yes,” I answered, “the pedigree must be filled up. I don’t even know your whole name, nor who your father was, nor yet your mother. I have your word for it, however,” I said, and the sentence was bitter to me to speak, “that your family was originally of burgher origin.”
“Put down,” she answered, “Marie Ottilie Pahlen, daughter of the deceased Herrn Geheimrath Baron Pahlen, Hof Doctor to his Serene Highness the Reigning Duke of Lausitz.”
The pen dropped from my hand.
“Your father was a doctor?” I asked in an extinguished voice.
“Ennobled,” she returned promptly, “after successfully piloting his Serene Highness through a bad attack of jaundice.”
“And your mother?” I murmured, clinging yet to the hope that on the mother’s side at least the connection might prove a little more worthy of the House of Jennico.
She hesitated and glanced at me. Once more I seemed to see some inner source of mirth bubble on her lip; or was it only that she was possessed by the very spirit of mischief? Anyhow, she forced her smile to gravity again and answered me steadily, while her eyes sought mine with a curious determined meaning at variance with the mock meekness of the rest of her countenance.
“Put down, Monsieur de Jennico,—’and of Sophia Müller, likewise deceased,’ and add if you like, ’once personal maid to her Serene Highness the Dowager Duchess, Marie Ottilie of Lausitz.’”
I sat like a man struck silly, and in the tide of fury that swept over me my single lucid thought was that if I spoke or moved I should disgrace myself. And she chose that moment, poor child, to come over to me and place her arms round my neck, and say caressingly in my ear: