“Of course,” said his wife; “and we ought never to have cut her. You heard what the count said.”
“Who’s to blame for the cutting? Not I. Men don’t cut women, my dear.”
“Well, Elias, I think you can take the palm for sneaking out of a responsibility. Men don’t cut women, indeed! I know they don’t; but they insult them worse than we do. I know you bow as graciously to Clara as if she were a duchess; but would you let Louise visit her? You know you wouldn’t. That’s the way men take the part of women whom their wives and daughters avoid.” Mr. Kendrick thought silence the best reply to this just reflection of his wife. He thought he could trust her to bring harmony out of the discord; for while he wanted to keep the count’s money from straying away from the family, she, on her part, was equally anxious to secure his name and rank for Louise; and he knew she would hang on to that hope to the last.
The next morning, after breakfast, which had been a serene affair, showing no trace of the perturbation of the previous evening, the count drove over to the doctor’s. The doctor was out, but would return very soon. Frauenstein waited, and spent the time mostly at the piano. The twins were both delighted, though timid, especially in the presence of such a lion. Linnie, after they had sung, asked him to say frankly what he thought of their voices. “Do you allow your sister to speak for you, Miss Leila?” he asked, turning his fine eyes upon hers.
“Yes—no,” blushing and laughing just like nothing in the world but a young girl. “I mean yes, in this case,” she finally managed to say.
“Well, then, yours has most power, but it is wiry. Miss Linnie’s is more flexible, more emotional. She feels more than you do, or, rather, more than you seem to, when she sings. If you were both equally to cultivate your voices, and also continue your practice for the next five years, Linnie would win more applause for her singing, and you for your playing. That is my opinion; but I ought to add, as the French do, maintenant je n’en sais rien.” Then the count made them both speak French, he carefully constructing his sentences as much as possible after Fasquelle’s French Course, which he knew was their text-book, they having no idea of the reason why they were able to get along so well with him. He understood their worst sentences like a Parisian. Any foreigner who has been in Paris will understand that. He will recall how, in his abominable murdering of the language, sentences which he could not for his life have understood himself, written or spoken, were instantly seized and graciously and gravely replied to, as if they had been models of elegance. When the count finished singing a charming aria in his best style, Linnie said, with enthusiasm,
“Oh, I wish my sister Clara could hear you sing!”
“She shall hear me sing,” he said, looking up to Linnie, who stood on his left, with an expression in his face that she had never seen there. It affected her senses like a caress.
Pretty soon the doctor entered; and after greeting the count, he said, “What a fusillade of French! What a state of excitement these girls are in! I believe you are bewitching them both, Frauenstein.”
“On the contrary, I am the victim of both, and I dare not stay another moment. I have come to take you over the river. I want you to see my fifty acres, on which I am going to build a social palace, if the gods are propitious.”