“Well, she looks evil when I say too much, even in joke, about her lover. Make inquiries, but leave me to row my own boat. My confidence ought to reassure you.”
“The Lord said, ‘Suffer little children to come unto Me.’ You are one of those who have come back again,” replied the Baron with a touch of irony.
After breakfast the dealer was announced, and the artist with his group. The sudden flush that reddened her daughter’s face at once made the Baroness suspicious and then watchful, and the girl’s confusion and the light in her eyes soon betrayed the mystery so badly guarded in her simple heart.
Count Steinbock, dressed in black, struck the Baron as a very gentlemanly young man.
“Would you undertake a bronze statue?” he asked, as he held up the group.
After admiring it on trust, he passed it on to his wife, who knew nothing about sculpture.
“It is beautiful, isn’t it, mamma?” said Hortense in her mother’ ear.
“A statue! Monsieur, it is less difficult to execute a statue than to make a clock like this, which my friend here has been kind enough to bring,” said the artist in reply.
The dealer was placing on the dining-room sideboard the wax model of the twelve Hours that the Loves were trying to delay.
“Leave the clock with me,” said the Baron, astounded at the beauty of the sketch. “I should like to show it to the Ministers of the Interior and of Commerce.”