“My dear nephew,” exclaimed the delighted Franz, “you may trust me absolutely. But I suppose I may tell Dorothea. Let us go inside.”
And he laid his hand on the knob of the door, inwardly resolving to persuade Dorothea that this was what he had foreseen all along.
“Stop!” cried Johann. “That is the very thing you are not to do. The King wishes her to be absolutely free, and he has sent me here to sound her feelings without letting her know of his intentions.”
The forester’s face fell. Forbidden to bring his parental authority to bear, he felt less confident of the issue.
“The King will be here later on,” added Johann, “and, if you take my advice, you will let him see as little of yourself as possible. You are not exactly a father-in-law for King Maximilian to be proud of.”
“For all that he shall make me a count when he marries Dorothea,” muttered Franz, as his nephew brushed past him into the cottage.
On consideration, however, he thought there was wisdom in Johann’s remark; and instead of lying in wait as usual to welcome the King, when he arrived, he threw a gun over his shoulder, and made off into another quarter of the forest.
Johann walked straight into the kitchen, where he found his little cousin in the act of polishing a large metal dish-cover. Something seemed to have changed in her since yesterday, for, instead of running to embrace him, she stood still and received his kiss with a slight air of constraint.
“I have come to have a quiet talk with you,” remarked Johann, dropping on to an old-fashioned settee which ran along one of the walls of the kitchen. “You can leave that cover alone.”
But Dorothea seemed to have developed a vein of obstinacy since yesterday.