“My dear,” continued the Freule, addressing her, “this young man is exceedingly interesting. I had forgotten him, but now I remember I thought so the last time he was here. The best thing is to have no manners. Now doesn’t he put that well?”
“I dare say he finds it convenient,” responded the Dowager. “How do you do, Mynheer Helmont? I am very glad to see you. I wish you would tell me when your father died?”
“It is seventeen years ago,” replied Helmont, wonderingly.
“Quite impossible. I feel sure you are more than sixteen.”
“I am twenty-four, but—”
“Mamma means ‘married,’ I believe,” suggested Ursula, gently.
“‘Married,’ that was what I said,” declared the Dowager, sharply. “Ursula, my soup is cold again. Manners or no manners, young man, you shouldn’t make fun of a woman old enough to be your grandmother.”
“I disapprove of such early marriages!” exclaimed the Freule. Ursula’s eyes and Theodore’s met. She burst out laughing, but he looked uncomfortably grave. “After luncheon,” she said, “I must take you round, Mynheer Helmont. It is no use showing you the stables; we have only three horses left, and they are of the kind that would better do their work unseen.”
He followed her obediently when they rose from table, and she pretended to take an interest in the small sights she had to offer her guest. The same can hardly be asserted of Theodore. He was painfully silent while she “made conversation,” wondering all the time in what way she should broach the one subject she cared to speak about.
In this, however, he hastened to her assistance, for his patience came to an end, while hers still hung on a thread. They were standing in the palm-house, when he suddenly looked up at her—he had some little height to look up—and asked,