“Marie, why do you flatter him?” said Lotta.
“I do not say half to his face that you said just now behind his back,” said Marie.
“And what did she say of me behind my back?” said Herr Crippel. He smiled as he asked the question, or attempted to smile, but it was easy to see that he was too much in earnest. He blushed up to his eyes, and there was a slight trembling motion in his hands as he stood with one of them pressed upon the other.
As Marie did not answer at the moment, Lotta replied for her.
“I will tell you what I said behind your back. I said that Herr Crippel had the firmest hand upon a bow, and the surest fingers among the strings, in all Vienna—when his mind was not wool-gathering. Marie, is not that true?”
“I do not remember anything about the wool-gathering,” said Marie.
“I hope I shall not be wool-gathering to-night; but I shall doubtless;—I shall doubtless,—for I shall be thinking of your judgment. Shall I get you seats at once? There; you are just before me. You see I am not coward enough to fly from my critics,” and he placed them to sit at a little marble table, not far from the front of the low orchestra in the foremost place in which he would have to take his stand.
“Many thanks, Herr Crippel,” said Lotta. “I will make sure of a third chair, as a friend is coming.”
“Oh, a friend!” said he; and he looked sad, and all his sprightliness was gone.
“Marie’s friend,” said Lotta, laughing. “Do not you know Carl Stobel?”