“Alas, I was Anna Midel once. I am no longer an object fit for love, but that is your fault.”
“Mine?”
“Yes; the four hundred florins you gave me made Count Fugger’s coachman marry me, and he not only abandoned me but gave me a disgusting disease, which was like to have been my death. I recovered my health, but I never shall recover my good looks.”
“I am very sorry to hear all this; but tell me what has become of Gertrude?”
“Then you don’t know that you are going to a ball at her house to-night?”
“Her house?”
“Yes. After her father’s death she married a well-to-do and respectable man, and I expect you will be pleased with the entertainment.”
“Is she pretty still?”
“She is just as she used to be, except that she is six years older and has had children.”
“Is she gallant?”