“What news?”
“Give me a cigar first. Thanks! I mean the news from Sielenburg.”
“I know nothing about it.”
“Do not you read your paper, man alive?”
“I confess I have been so busy the last few days with my work that I have scarcely glanced at the papers.”
“And you did not know that the old count is dead?”
“Dead!” exclaimed Chlodwig, in a tone of genuine concern. “How? When?”
“A few days ago—and his granddaughter, Miss Franka, whom you admired so much, is left universal legatee.... She seems to have succeeded in making good.... Have not you a chance there? She would be a match!”
Chlodwig was dumb with astonishment. He was, indeed, glad that such a piece of extraordinary good fortune had befallen the charming young lady; but one thing he contemplated with horror—the crowd of fortune-hunters that would surround her.
“If you had been a foxy fellow,” pursued the other, “you would have turned the girl’s head—but, of course, you could not have foreseen what was to happen to her.”