"If Mr. Dernburg has no objection----"
"Mr. Dernburg is agreed. I have just spoken with him on the subject--the only question is, whether you are willing. I know, indeed, that I am not much in your favor----"
"Pray do not go on, doctor," coolly interposed the lady. "I am very glad that you give me an opportunity to prove my gratitude for the medical advice that you have given me several times."
"Yes, in your 'nervous' attacks. Very well, the matter's settled. Dagobert, boy, where are you hiding? Come up!" He shouted these last words down the steps in a very peremptory tone.
Leona fairly shrank and said disapprovingly: "You treat the young man exactly as if he were a schoolboy."
"Am I to put on more than usual ceremony with the youth? He would evidently like to take the part of a man in society--and at the same time he blushes and stammers as soon as he addresses a stranger. Well, there you are, Dagobert! This lady is going to have the goodness to take you as a pupil. Return your thanks!"
Again Dagobert made an uncommonly low and reverential bow--he seemed to have made a regular study of it--again blushed and began:
"I am very grateful to the lady--I am perfectly delighted--I cannot begin to say, how glad I am----" There he stuck fast, but Leona came to the help of his embarrassment, and turned to him kindly:
"I am not going to be a strict teacher, and I think we shall get on nicely together, Herr Hagenbach."
"Call him simply 'Dagobert,'" interrupted the doctor in his reckless way. "He has such an odd name though."