"These giants always have one great advantage," said she; "they are imposing at first sight, but that is all. You must never look for mind or strength of character in them."
"Never?" said Wanda, with a peculiar expression. "Are you quite sure?"
The Princess seemed to think the question a strange and superfluous one; she looked at her niece in astonishment.
"We both know what ends Wilicza has now to serve," the latter continued, with suppressed vehemence, "and you must acknowledge, dear aunt, that it would be very inconvenient and dangerous should it suddenly occur to your son to show any 'mind.' Be prudent. That quiet manner and, above all, that brow of his are not to my liking."
"My dear," said the elder lady, with calm superiority, "will you not allow me to be the judge of my son's character; or do you imagine that, at twenty years of age, you possess greater powers of discernment than any I am endowed with? Waldemar is a Nordeck--that is saying everything."
"I know you have always summed up your judgment of him in those words. He may be the exact image of his father in every other feature; but that forehead, with its sharply defined blue vein, he has from you. Does it seem to you a thing impossible that he may one day show himself his mother's son?"
"Utterly impossible," the Princess declared in a harsh tone, as though the notion were really insulting to her. "All of myself I have had power to transmit, Leo alone has inherited. Do not be foolish, Wanda. You are irritated at Waldemar's behaviour to yourself, and I admit it was not very flattering; but you really must take his susceptibility into some account. How you manage to discover strength of character in this tenacious clinging to an old grudge, I cannot understand--to me it proves just the contrary. Any one else would have felt grateful to you for endeavouring to put aside a painful half-forgotten souvenir, and would have met you with an ease of manner equal to your own. As his brother's betrothed ..."
"Does Waldemar know already?" the young Countess interrupted.
"Yes, Leo told him himself."
"And how did he take the news?"