"You know very well I do not approve of such doings," said the Princess, much annoyed. "If, now and then, I trust Wanda to you, that is quite a different thing. You have been brought up together, and are therefore entitled to treat each other as brother and sister. Waldemar stands in quite a different relation to her, and moreover--I do not choose that they should thus be left alone together. The boating excursion was planned by you all in common. Why did you not remain with the others?"
"Because I will not always stay where I am not wanted!" exclaimed Leo. "Because it is no pleasure to me to see Waldemar following Wanda about with his eyes, and behaving as if she were the only creature in existence."
The Princess pressed the seal on her letter.
"I have told you before what I think of these foolish fits of jealousy, Leo. Are you beginning with them again already?"
"Mamma!" The young Prince came up to the writing table with flashing eyes. "Do you not see, or will you not see, that Waldemar is in love with your niece--that he worships her?"
"Well, and what do you do?" asked his mother, leaning back in her chair composedly. "Precisely the same, or at least you fancy so. You cannot expect me to take this boyish enthusiasm into serious account? You and Waldemar are just at the age to need an ideal, and Wanda is the only young girl with whom you have been thrown in contact so far. Fortunately, she is still child enough to look on it all as a sort of game, and it is for that reason alone I allow it to go on. If she were to begin to take a more serious view of the matter, I should be obliged to interfere and restrict your intercourse to narrower limits. But, if I know anything of Wanda, the case will not arise. She plays with you both, and laughs at you both. So indulge yet awhile in your romance, young people! It will do your brother no harm to practise a little gallantry. He needs it much, I am sorry to say!"
The smile which accompanied these words was truly insulting to a youthful passion--it said so plainly, 'mere child's play.' Leo restrained his indignation with much difficulty.
"I wish you would talk to Waldemar in that tone of his 'boyish enthusiasm,'" he replied, with suppressed vehemence. "He would not take it so quietly."
"I should not disguise from him, any more than from you, that I look upon the matter as a piece of youthful folly. If, five or six years hence, you speak to me of your love to Wanda, or if Waldemar tells me of his, I shall attach some importance to your feelings. For the present, you can safely play the part of your cousin's faithful knights--always on condition that no disputes arise between you on the subject."
"They have arisen already," declared Leo. "I have just had some very sharp words with Waldemar. That was why I gave up the sail. I won't bear it. He claims Wanda's company and conversation altogether for himself, and I won't stand his imperious, dictatorial ways any longer either. I shall take every opportunity now of letting him see it."