“You are certainly joking, M. Christian Goefle, or we do not understand each other. God forgive me, you are looking at the person opposite. Is it possible that you have mistaken him for the Baron de Waldemora?”
“How can I help supposing that the person who calls you his fiancée, and whom you gayly call your lover, is the baron?”
Margaret burst out laughing.
“Oh! dear me,” she cried, “if you have really imagined that I could treat Baron Olaus with such friendly familiarity, you must have thought me very deceitful or very inconsistent; but, thank God, I am neither the one nor the other. The individual whom I call jestingly my lover, is a person of no less consequence than the doctor of sciences, Monsieur Stangstadius, of whom you must have heard your uncle speak.”
“Doctor Stangstadius,” replied Cristiano, feeling very much relieved; “I must confess that I do not know him, even by name. I have just arrived from a distant country, where I have always lived.”
“I can understand, then,” replied Margaret, “how it is that you have not heard of our learned mineralogist. Your opinion of him is very correct. He is an excellent man, sometimes a little violent, but never malicious. And then he is simple as a child! There are certain days when he imagines that my passion for him, as he calls it, is serious, and when he tries to break the chain, assuring me that a great man like himself belongs to the universe, and cannot devote himself to a woman. I have known him for a long time; ever since he came to the chateau where I was brought up, for the purpose of making investigations on our estates. He passed several weeks with us, and, since then, my aunt has allowed him to visit me whenever his business brings him to our province. He was my only acquaintance here when I arrived, for you must know that Baron Olaus has made him superintendent of important mining operations on his domain. But there is my aunt looking for me! Now I shall have a good scolding, you will see!”
“Do you want to avoid her? Pass between the wall and this hunting trophy.”
“Potin would have to go too, and we could never persuade M. Stangstadius to keep our secret. Oh dear! now my aunt will torment me to death to dance with the baron, but I shall persist in being lame, though the pain is so slight that I scarcely feel it.”
“It is nothing at all, I hope.”
“Yes, indeed. I was so fortunate as to fall down on the staircase a little while ago, in my aunt’s presence. My ankle really did hurt me a little, and I looked dreadfully woe-begone, to prove that I could not possibly open the court dance with the master of the house. My aunt had to take my place, and that is why I am here; but the dance is over, and here she comes!”