Not daring to quarrel openly with his daughter, he was endeavouring to wear down her obstinacy by an attitude of sulky aloofness. In the mean time his bitterest wrath was reserved for the person whom he looked upon as the author of all the trouble, his nephew Johann.
It was while he was thus brooding sullenly over his grievances that he heard the click of the gate-latch, and looked round to see the enemy coming boldly towards him.
Instantly he rose from his seat, and pulled-to the door of the cottage.
“Now, sir, what have you come here again for?” he demanded, as soon as his nephew came up.
The other gave him a look, half contemptuous, half angry.
“I wonder you dare to look me in the face,” he said. “You, with your miserable cunning; what have you been expecting as the result of these secret visits of the King?”
“That is not your business. What right had you to thrust your oar in, and terrify that silly girl with your blustering talk?”
“It is my business, as long as Dorothea is my cousin. You had better speak plainly; did you wish to see your daughter ruined?”
“Don’t talk like that to me. Do you suppose I don’t know what I am about? If you had only left things alone a little longer, his Majesty might have made her a countess—think of that! The Countess von Gitten!”
Johann replied with a look of loathing, beneath which the old man fairly shrank.