CHAPTER XV.
In the forenoon of a cool but sunny May day, Herr Frank was returning from L---- whither he had been to fetch his daughter and son-in-law. Professor Fabian and his wife were seated in the carriage with him. The former's new academical dignity seemed to agree right well with him; he looked in better health and spirits than ever. His young wife, in consideration of her husband's position, had assumed a certain stateliness of demeanour which she did her very best to maintain, and which was in comic contrast to her fresh, youthful appearance. Fortunately, she often fell out of her rôle, and became true Gretchen Frank once more; but at this moment, it was the Professor's wife who sat by her father's side with much gravity of deportment, giving him an account of their life in J----.
"Yes, papa, it will be a great relief to us to come and stay with you for a time," said she, passing her handkerchief over her blooming face, which certainly did not look as though it needed relief. "We University people have so many claims upon us. We are expected to interest ourselves in every possible subject, and our position requires so much from us. We Germanists stand well to the front in the scientific movement of the age."
"You certainly appear to stand very much to the front," said the steward, who was listening with some wonder. "Tell me, child, which of you really fills the professorial chair at J----, your husband or yourself?"
"The wife belongs to the husband, so it comes to the same," declared Gretchen. "Without me Emile never could have accepted the post, distinguished scholar as he is. Professor Weber said to him the day before yesterday in my presence, 'My worthy colleague, you are a perfect treasure to the University, as regards science, but for all the details of practical life you are worth absolutely nothing. In all such matters you are quite at sea. It is a mercy your young wife is so well able to supply your deficiencies.' He is quite right, is he not, Emile? Without me you would be lost in a social point of view."
"Altogether," assented the Professor, full of faith, and with a look of grateful tenderness at his wife.
"Do you hear, papa, he owns it," said she, turning to her father. "Emile is one of the few men who know how to appreciate their wives. Hubert never would have done that. By-the-by, how is the Assessor? Is not he made Counsellor even yet?"
"No, not yet, and he is so wrath at it that he has given in his resignation. At the beginning of next month he quits the service of the State."
"What a loss for all the future ministries of our country!" laughed Gretchen. "He had quite made up his mind he should come into office some day, and he used to practice the ministerial bearing when he was sitting in our parlour. Is he still tormented with the fixed idea of discovering traitors and conspirators everywhere?"
Frank laughed in his turn. "I really don't know, for I have hardly seen him since your engagement was announced, and never once spoken to him. He has laid my house under a ban ever since that time. You might certainly have told him the news in a more considerate manner. When he comes over to Wilicza, which does not happen often, he stops down in the village, and never comes near the manor-farm. I have no transactions with him now that Herr Nordeck has taken the direction of the police into his own hands--but the Assessor may pass for a rising man nowadays: he inherited the greater part of Schwarz's fortune. The Professor died a few months ago."