"Ah, baron, what a man you would be if you were not so furiously learned."
"Do you think so? May be! I have inherited that disease. It was my mother's fault; she used to read the racing almanac and many a novel besides. That explains the bad features in my character."
"Gentlemen, would you like to try my new pistols?" asked their host, who came up just then.
"I thought there would be dancing?" said Cloten.
"After dinner. You are coming, Oldenburg?"
"Of course. You know my motto: Aux armes, citoyens."
CHAPTER XXIII.
The company had all assembled, and were gradually finding their way from the close rooms into the garden, where the superb afternoon attracted them all. The elderly ladies and gentlemen walked up and down in the shady avenues, or inspected the superb greenhouses; the younger people tried to arrange games on a beautiful lawn, which was partly overshadowed by old, broad-branching trees; and from a corner in the park, where a shooting-gallery had been improvised, firing was heard at intervals. Melitta remembered the adage, that the reputation of young women is made by old women, and thought that as she intended to enjoy a certain degree of liberty at the ball, she had better pay for it now by a few small sacrifices; she joined therefore a party of old ladies, the Countess Grieben, the Baroness Trantow, and others. Oswald had at first joined the young people, to whom Langen had introduced him, and had helped to arrange some games which he had known in the capital, and which he adapted skilfully to the exigencies of the day. The company had met his suggestions with universal applause, and he was on the high way of becoming eminently popular. But when he saw that Melitta would not join the circle in which he was, he availed himself of a suitable opportunity to escape. Langen had followed him, and overtook him in a narrow path between two rows of bushes, where Oswald enjoyed the innocent pleasure of picking gooseberries.
"God be thanked!" said Langen, following Oswald's example and plundering a currant-bush, which hung full of blood-red clusters. "We have escaped that horror! Curses be upon the man who invented social games! Are the gooseberries ripe?"
"Delicious!"