“I should not mind the thirty years so much if his face were not so red and his figure so stout. I hate red-faced, stout men!”
“If he could change his appearance to please you, I have no doubt he would do so,” observed Hamilton, smiling.
“Hildegarde also dislikes red-faced men,” she added, pettishly.
“Whatever Hildegarde says must be right, of course,” said Hamilton, ironically; “but I have not discovered that she dislikes Count Zedwitz, and he rather comes under the denomination red-faced.”
“Hildegarde says Count Zedwitz is very agreeable, and not in the least presuming.”
“And who does she say is presuming, if I may ask?”
“She says you are—or would be, if you were allowed.”
“I think she is wrong. And were she to meet Zedwitz here alone——”
“Hildegarde would never do such a thing—never! And I ought not to have come, either,” she cried, starting from her seat and looking anxiously round. Then, laying her hand heavily on his arm, and straining her eyes as if to see something more distinctly, she asked, in a scarcely audible voice, “What is that?”
“What?—I see nothing.”