"Have you heard any details," asked Victor, mysteriously, "concerning the scare they have had at the castle of my great-uncle? It was about a woman, or rather an apparition, which, in reality, was a spirit that entered as a spectre, with a great row; it began as a thundering noise and ended like a funeral march; it made the doors shake, and the chandeliers jingle like a peal of bells. Have you heard nothing of it?"
"Nothing. What apparition? When--and how?"
"I do not quite know," replied Victor; "but if you hear anything of it, I beg you to let me know."
This the Marshal promised to do, and hastened away.
The Marshal was blameless in his service; he inspected all the accounts conscientiously, took care to have good wine in the cellar, and discharged the ceremonial details of his office well. Besides this, he was a worthy nobleman, but without any great abilities. He was, therefore, a valuable champion of Court; for he contended, with all the energy of a fanatic, for the venerated customs of his household against the irregular pretensions of foreign guests, and was sometimes made use of by the Sovereign as a battering-ram to assault a wall which another would have gone cautiously round. He now came to Ilse, ill-pleased at heart with the commission which he had been commanded to carry out dexterously. He found the Professor's wife in an unfavorable mood. The boldness of Victor, and the secret reproach conveyed in the words of the Hereditary Prince, had made her discontented with herself, and suspicious of the uncertain position in which she was placed. The Marshal long stirred the bowl from which he had to pour; he turned the conversation to Ilse's home and her father, whom he had once met at a cattle-show.
"It is a fine estate, I hear, and has a very high reputation."
Ilse, taking pleasure in this praise of what was dear to her, entered unsuspiciously into the conversation, and told him of the neighboring farms and their owners.
At last the Marshal began:
"Your father is worthy of every distinction; pardon me, therefore, if I put one question: Has your father ever had the wish to be ennobled?"
"No," replied Ilse, staring at the Marshal with astonishment; "why should he have such a wish?"