"You wouldn't have troubled yourself to come near me only I sent for you," she said, in a tone of gentle reproach.
"Into the presence of a queen one doesn't intrude; we wait to be summoned."
"Don't try and flatter me; if you do like the others I shall treat you as I do them, and not speak one word to you. I much prefer your way, although you are always offending me."
"I do not remember to have ever offended you."
"Because you do nothing else. You know that very well."
It was now their turn; they joined the waltzers, and no one would have guessed that it was fifteen years since Ivan had danced.
Meantime, in the card-room there was some gossip over this new whim of the young countess. Count Edmund, as he shuffled the cards, declared his cousin Angela was bewitched about this Ritter Magnet.
"Ah, is that so?" cried the Marquis Salista.
"Don't you believe him," interrupted Count Stefan. "I know our pretty Angela; she is as full of mischief as a kitten. As soon as she remarks that a man has a hobby-horse, she makes him ride it, puts it through all its paces, caracoling, leaping, haute école. This is her trick: once she knows the subject which interests a man, she talks of it with such an earnest face, such sympathetic eyes; and when he has left her, charmed at her intelligence, her sweetness, she ridicules the unfortunate devil. This is the way she treated poor Sondersheim, a very brave young fellow, who has only one fault, that he worships Angela, and she abhors him. She laughs at everybody."
"That is true; but she praises Ivan, not to his face, but behind his back to me, and not because he is a man of science, a geologist, but because he is such a brave man."