“It is only too true,” answered the lieutenant, heaving a heart-felt and equally ingenuous sigh.
“But did he make you promise,” said Margaret, “not to reveal his name?”
“We would not have consented to make any such promise,” replied the major, “we love him too well for that; but, when one has a secret which, by good luck, excites the curiosity of the ladies, he likes to make his importance felt, and so we will not tell you anything more—will we lieutenant?—until you have done your very best to guess the name of our hero.”
“Perhaps it was Monsieur Stangstadius,” said Mademoiselle Potin, laughing.
“No,” replied some one, “the professor was at our hunt, and he left with the Baron de Waldemora.”
“Well,” said Olga, “it may have been precisely to join these gentlemen that they went. Who knows whether it was not the baron?”
“Such exploits are not suited to his age,” said a young man, who would have been very glad to pay court to Olga, in an affected tone.
“Why not?” she rejoined.
“I do not say,” observed Larrson, “that he is too old for such exploits, but it is my opinion that he has never had a taste for them. The baron has never, I believe, hunted in the new style; that is, without being intrenched behind a net of strong and well-stretched cords.”
“What!” cried Margaret, “did you hunt without nets?”