Yet he was a pleasant, handsome fellow, with so much bonhommie about him that it was impossible not to be pleased with him, all the more that the iron cross on his breast showed that he had comported himself gallantly in the field.
'The Fraulein Ellinor is very cold and very calm,' said he; 'she can take a man's heart—take all his love and give him none in return.'
'It is not so,' replied Mrs. Deroubigne.
'How, madame, then?'
'You do not know her story; but why should I recur to it?'
'Her story—she has had, then, an affaire du coeur?'
'One at least, certainly,' said Mrs. Deroubigne, laughing again at the baron's expression of face and tone of pique.
'Der Teufel! One at least? How sad it is to think of a young lady having a story! And this—or these—render her indifferent to me?'
'Perhaps,' replied Mrs. Deroubigne, who, much as she liked the young Prussian, did not wish to flatter his hopes, but he was not the less resolved to put the matter to the issue.
Calling one afternoon when Mrs. Deroubigne and Mary had driven into Hamburg, he intercepted Ellinor in the garden, with her little camp-stool, easel, and colour-box, about to go forth and sketch; and though he had but a few minutes to spare, as his horse was at the gate to take him back to barracks, he resolved to utilise them.