A faint smile crossed his lips. For all the triumphant vindication, he looked very pallid.
“I have often wondered, Hildegarde, how so proud a woman as you could so soon accept the worthlessness of a pupil on whom she had spent such pains as you upon me. I learned my best notions of honor and chivalry from you. You might have credited me rather with trying to carry the lesson out than with plucking it away and casting it from me at the first opportunity.”
“You have much to forgive,” said she.
“Eugen, you came to see me on business,” said his brother.
Eugen turned to me. I turned hot and then cold. This was a terrible ordeal indeed. He seemed metamorphosed into an exceedingly grand personage as he came to me, took my hand, and said, very proudly and very gravely:
“The first part of my business related to Sigmund. It will not need to be discussed now. The rest was to tell you that this young lady—in spite of having heard all that could be said against me—was still not afraid to assert her intention to honor me by becoming my wife and sharing my fate. Now that she has learned the truth—May, do you still care for me enough to marry me?”
“If so,” interrupted his brother before I could speak, “let me add my petition and that of my wife—do you allow me, Hildegarde?”
“Indeed, yes, yes!”
“That she will honor us and make us happy by entering our family, which can only gain by the acquisition of such beauty and excellence.”
The idea of being entreated by Graf Bruno to marry his brother almost overpowered me. I looked at Eugen and stammered out something inaudible, confused, too, by the look he gave me.