"Well, there, that's enough. What you hope and desire can be no secret from me now. You want to have me for your father-in-law?"
Wilberg looked as if this additional blessing, so inseparable from his future marriage, did not afford him any special delight. "I beg your pardon, sir, what I want is to have Fräulein Mélanie for my wife," he replied shyly.
"Oh! and you will reluctantly take me into the bargain?" asked the irritated father-in-law in spe. "I really don't know how you dare come to me with such a proposal. Have you not been in love with Lady Eugénie Berkow? Have you not filled reams of paper with verses addressed to her? Why don't you go on still with your platonic affection?"
"Oh, that was years ago!" pleaded the lover in his defence. "Mélanie has known that for a long time, indeed that was the very thing which brought us together. There are two sorts of love, sir: the romance of youth, which seeks its ideal in a higher sphere far removed and beyond its reach, and another more durable affection, which finds its happiness on earth."
"Oh! and for this second matter-of-fact sort of sentiment my daughter is good enough? Deuce take you!" cried the chief-engineer, furious.
"You will not understand me," said Wilberg, deeply hurt, but still with some consciousness of the advantage of his position; he knew what a powerful reserve he had in the next room. "Mélanie understands me, she has given me her hand and heart"----
"Well, this is a very pretty business," growled the exasperated parent. "If daughters can bestow their hands and hearts in this manner without more ado, I should like to know what fathers are here for! Wilberg,"--here his face and manner became somewhat milder--"Wilberg, I must do you the justice to say that you have become more rational during the last few years, but you are far from being rational enough. You have not left off versifying for one thing. I would wager you have got some sonnets about you now."
He glanced suspiciously at the young man's frock-coat. Wilberg reddened a little.
"As an affianced husband I should be quite justified in writing them?" said be, with a sort of timid enquiry.
"Yes, and in giving serenades! We shall have a nice time of it this summer," groaned the chief-engineer, in despair. "Look you, Wilberg, if I did not know that Mélanie has got something of her father in her, and that she will soon drive out all your romantic nonsense out of your head, I would say no, once for all. But it seems to me you want a sensible wife, and more particularly a sensible father-in-law who will give you good advice from time to time, and as it appears it can't be helped--well, you shall have both!"