“By no means. I don’t wish to do anything that’s disagreeable to Mr. Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us.”
“But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him.”
“I want to please everyone!” exclaimed Felix, joyously. “I have a good conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not my place to make love to Gertrude.”
“So, to simplify matters, she made love to you!”
Felix looked at his sister with sudden gravity. “You say you are not afraid of her,” he said. “But perhaps you ought to be—a little. She’s a very clever person.”
“I begin to see it!” cried the Baroness. Her brother, making no rejoinder, leaned back in his chair, and there was a long silence. At last, with an altered accent, Madame Münster put another question. “You expect, at any rate, to marry?”
“I shall be greatly disappointed if we don’t.”
“A disappointment or two will do you good!” the Baroness declared. “And, afterwards, do you mean to turn American?”
“It seems to me I am a very good American already. But we shall go to Europe. Gertrude wants extremely to see the world.”
“Ah, like me, when I came here!” said the Baroness, with a little laugh.