"It is enough to make a dead-set at pantaloons, especially when they are such magnificent ones as the pair that has just been imperiled," answered Doctor Hagenbach pleasantly, as he set down the tiny, struggling creature. "A good-day to you, Miss Maia! No need to ask after your health, I perceive."
"No, indeed, it has certainly been sufficiently asked after, for one day," protested the young lady, with a saucy look at Dagobert. She took her little dog upon her arm and caused it to make a comical bow.
"Beg pardon, Puck, and promise that you will not do it again. Good-morning, gentlemen, I must go to papa as fast as ever I can." And with a careless salutation she flew off to her father's rooms.
Dr. Hagenbach, the surgeon for the works and Dernburg family-physician, was a man of forty-five or forty-six years, whose hair already began to be tinged with gray here and there, and whose figure tended to rather too much fullness, was, on the whole a fine-looking man, the perfect counterpart of the nephew to whom he now turned.
"You have played the part of a veritable hero, to be sure!" mocked he. "That ungovernable little thing only wanted to play, and you to run away!"
"I did not want to treat the young lady's pet roughly," explained Dagobert, solicitously examining his pantaloons, that fortunately had not been damaged. The uncle silently shrugged his shoulders.
"We shall hardly be able to make the visit to-day to Miss Friedberg," said he then. "As I just learned, they are expecting the party from Nice in about an hour, and the whole house is upset, preparing to receive them. But since we are here, I'll make the attempt, anyhow, to speak with the lady; you meanwhile can be recovering composure, both as to the outward and inner man."
He mounted the stairs, and at the top met the governess, who had just come out of the parlor. Almost daily she saw the doctor, who, for long years, had stood upon a very friendly footing with the Dernburg family, nevertheless, there was a perceptible reserve in her manner as she returned his greeting. Hagenbach seemed not to remark this, he asked lightly after her health, listening in the same way to her answer, and then said:
"I had an especial reason for calling upon you, Miss Friedberg. The time is badly chosen, it is true, for apparently you, too, are engrossed by the coming reception of the expected guests, but my request can be made in a few minutes, so permit me to lay it before you, just as we stand."
"You have a request to make of me?" asked Leona, with cool surprise. "Actually?"