"But I?" exclaimed the doctor. "If the simpleton manages a single time more to praise you in song, and lay at your feet the passionate emotions of his youthful breast, then----"
"What is it to you?" asked Leonie, astonished at this vehement outbreak, for which, in her opinion, there was no ground.
"What is it to me? Ah! that indeed--You do not know yet----" Hagenbach suddenly arose and stepped close in front of her.
"Look at me for once, Miss Friedberg!"
"I find nothing especially remarkable about you."
"You are not expected to find anything remarkable about me, either," said the doctor, quite hurt. "But I look quite passable, considering my years."
"Certainly, Doctor."
"I have a lucrative position, not an inconsiderable fortune, a pretty house--that is much too large for me by myself."
"I do not doubt all this, but what is----"
"And as to my roughness," continued Hagenbach, without heeding the interruption, "it is only outwardly so. In the main I am a regular lamb."