“You call this respect? I call it unheard-of impudence.”
“You see how little we understand each other.”
“I shall certainly not remain in Sielenburg if you arrogate to yourself the claim of being the mistress and allow me to stay here as a favor.”
“I am not arrogating....” She stopped.
“You mean, you are the mistress, and I am your guest? Thank you most humbly.”
“No, aunt. I certainly said the Sielenburg should be your home with all that it contains and all that appertains to it, and I am ready to grant you the use of it as long as you live—I mean for unrestricted use, that is to say, with all the revenues that belong to it ... by legal contract.”
The old lady hesitated. That was an attractive offer. For Franka herself she cared very little. Only a short time before she had, so to speak, proposed to expel her from the Sielenburg. She took up her knitting again and mechanically took a few stitches.
“We will think it over,” she said after a while.
CHAPTER VII
FRANKA’S SALON
With the aid of Dr. Fixstern and his wife, Franka had established herself in the Vienna palace, having made first in the company of the doctor a trip to Lower Austria and Carinthia for the purpose of acquainting herself with her two other estates. The castles there were fully as sumptuous and seigneurial as Castle Sielenburg, even if not so comfortable and homelike, and the reason for this was that its owners had always preferred Schloss Sielenburg, while Grossmarkendorf and Hochberg generally stood empty. The lands and industries belonging to them were profitably rented, so that their administration would not occasion any care to the possessor. The fixed revenues were to be collected by the agent and by him turned over to her. When Dr. Fixstern informed her of the amount of the income, she had to suppress a cry of astonishment: so rich, so unboundedly rich she was now!