“Yes,” replied the Baroness, tartly, “but all his originality is original sin. However, I am glad, Louisa, if you can find extenuations, which I openly confess myself as yet unable to see.”
The thin Freule rested an angular elbow on her knees.
“Ah, but that is because you are so entirely conventional,” she said, gravely. “You are altogether hereditary, my dear; you cannot step out of your groove.”
“Je ne déraille pas,” replied the Baroness. “No. Dieu merci. Must Otto, to be happy?”
The Freule van Borck sighed.
“My dear, it is no use,” she said. “We shall never understand each other. It is of the very essence of man’s making that he should not run on rails. Machines run on rails. All the misery of the world has been caused by our doing so, and generally in batches, after one locomotive. When two of our locomotives met, there was a smash and bloodshed.”
“But that,” said the Baroness, evidently bored, “is exactly opposed to your favorite theory of hero-worship.”
“So it is,” replied her sister, cheerfully. “We must all be inconsistent at times, except you people on the rails. I was thinking of the hereditary leaders, not the hero-leaders of men. No hero ever—”
“But, Louisa, don’t you understand? I have just told you that Otto—our Otto—is going to marry Ursula Rovers.”
“Yes, my dear, and I reply that he makes a distinctly new departure. To judge of its expediency, we must know the result.”