“Well, that is certainly a misfortune. Your laugh did not ring merrily. I can easily imagine that a hundred opportunities were open to you, and perhaps for that very reason you do not want to marry, and you are not so far from wrong.... Freedom is a fine thing. But have you no lover?”
“Truly, Baron Malhof, you are....”
“Oh, do not scold me! On the reef of your virtue all the accumulated wisdom of my life goes to shipwreck. But this time I am preaching unselfishly, and the text of my sermon is: Do not let your youth pass in vain; don’t cheat your heart and your temperament of their rights. You did not come into the world, blest with beauty, wealth, and independence, to waste all these treasures, and bluestocking yourself merely for women’s rights’ tournées like any ugly old maid. You must live, Fräulein Garlett—live!”
Franka stopped walking and withdrew her arm: “You are incorrigible. This is in the style of that letter of yours ... but I am not making a show of insulted virtue, it is insulted independence. What I do, and what I leave undone, is not your affair. You cannot look into my soul; you cannot know what I understand by living.”
Baron Malhof put on a contrite expression: “I have been at fault again, I see. I was trying to give good advice and I get a lesson. Forgive me!”
Franka took his arm again: “Now, tell me, please, what mischief lurks in the tent, from the neighborhood of which you have led me.”
“How good of you to be genial again! In the tent sit your two aunts and Cousin Coriolan.”
Certainly no joyful surprise showed itself in Franka’s face. “Aunt Adele and Aunt Albertine? How did they happen to come here?”
“To tell the honest truth, I persuaded them to take the journey. You will forgive me for that, too?”
“I will go this minute and greet my aunts.”