“Oh, ja, as leetle—as possible,” answered the Baron, though not with his most ingenuous air. “Besides, it is tree years since I promised. For tree years I have seen nozing. My love Alicia, you vould not have me forget mine friends altogezzer?”
But the Baroness had too vivid a recollection of their last (and only) visit to England since their marriage. By a curious coincidence that also was three years ago.
“When you last met you remember what happened?” she asked, with an ominous hint of emotion in her accents.
“My love, how often have I eggsplained? Zat night you mean, I did schleep in mine hat because I had got a cold in my head. I vas not dronk, no more zan you. Vat you found in my pocket vas a mere joke, and ze cabman who called next day vas jost vat I told him to his ogly face—a blackmail.”
“You gave him money to go away.”
“A Blitzenberg does not bargain mit cabmen,” said the Baron loftily.
His wife's spirits began to revive. There seemed to speak the owner of Fogelschloss, the haughty magnate of Bavaria.
“You have too much self-respect to wish to find yourself in such a position again,” she said. “I know you have, Rudolph!”
The Baron was silent. This appeal met with distinctly less response than she confidently counted upon. In a graver note she inquired—
“You know what mother thinks of Mr. Essington?”