"Probably of a bilious fever," added Gretchen.
"Gretchen!" said the professor, imploringly and reproachfully.
"Heaven knows he had a bilious temperament!" continued Gretchen. "He was as irritable as you are patient. Only think of it, papa! Just after his call to J----, Emil wrote the professor a courteous, modest letter, in which he really apologized for being his successor, and solemnly declared his innocence of all participation in the university quarrel. The letter was never answered, and now that this unamiable celebrity has left the world, my husband feels called upon to dedicate to him a posthumous eulogy, deploring the loss to science as if this professor had been his best friend."
"I did so in good faith, and from sincere conviction," replied Fabian, in his gentle, earnest way. "The professor's morbid character often robbed him of the appreciation which was justly his due. I felt it my duty to remind the world of the loss science has suffered in his death. He was a man of great learning and ability."
Gretchen's lips curled in scorn. "I don't care what he was!" she said. "Let us change the subject. Herr Nordeck is not in Villica."
"No," said Herr Frank, curtly; "he is away."
"Yes; he wrote to my husband that he thought of going to Altenhof, and might remain there for some weeks. It is strange that he should leave Villica just now, when so many things there demand his attention."
"Altenhof is his old home," said the professor. "It has been left him by will, and nothing can persuade him to sell the estate. It is only natural that he should wish to revisit the scenes of his youth."
Gretchen looked incredulous. "Waldemar Nordeck is not a man to cling to sentimental remembrances," she said. "This visit is merely a pretext: perhaps he is seeking by change of scene to divert his mind from its passion for the Countess Wanda. Polish women are insane in their national fanaticism; this young girl will not give her hand to the man she loves because he is a German! I would have married my Emil if he had been a Hottentot. And now my dear husband is fretting continually over the supposed unhappiness of his beloved Waldemar, seriously imagining that this man has a heart like other men. Nothing can make me believe such an absurdity!"
"Gretchen!" said the professor a second time, and with an effort at severity which was an entire failure.