"No," Otto replied, in a tone that carried conviction with it.
After a pause his grandfather asked again, "Do you think your affection is reciprocated?"
"I—I do not know," Otto stammered.
"Nonsense! You must know!" the Freiherr roared, now thoroughly indignant. "You're not so over-modest, and when it is a question of your whole future life——or, can it be?"—and his eyes flashed fire from beneath his bushy brows,—"have you dared to trifle with Johanna? In that case, my boy, you will answer it to me. Johanna is my daughter's child, and a Dönninghausen, even although she does not bear the name."
Otto sat as if spell-bound by his grandfather's angry eyes. "I assure you——" he began at last.
"No fine phrases!" the Freiherr interrupted him again, but far more gently. "Prove that you are in earnest. Put an end to misunderstandings, and you shall have my blessing."
Otto started up. He had prepared himself to endure violent reproaches and perhaps temporary banishment from Dönninghausen, but to be obliged to betroth himself—to Johanna! What would his former comrades, what would the Klausenburg sisters, above all, what would Magelone say?
"My dear sir," he stammered, as all this flashed through his brain like lightning, "how is this possible? My affairs——"
"Are certainly not in a condition to make you a very brilliant match," the Freiherr sarcastically completed his sentence. "But Johanna is magnanimous. If she loves you, she will not be calculating. Her maternal inheritance is not large, but it will suffice to make you modestly independent——"
"My dear sir, neither am I calculating," Otto interposed.