"You are acquainted with my small gallery," she began, looking around the large airy room with some pride.
"I have frequently enjoyed your works of art," the young officer replied. The phrase was rather formal; in fact, he himself was rather formal, but there was something so genial behind his stiff North-German formality that one easily forgave him his purely superficial priggishness,--nay, upon further acquaintance came to like it.
"Rather antiquated in expression, your reply," the old lady rejoined. "My small collection thanks you for your kindly appreciation; but that is not the question at present. You know my Böcklin?"
"Yes, Countess."
"What do you think of it?"
He fixed his eyes upon it. "What could I think of it? It is a masterpiece."
"H'm! that all the world admits," the old lady murmured, impatiently, as if vexed at the want of originality in his remark; "but is it a picture that one would leave hanging on the wall of one's boudoir when one was about to receive into one's house as an inmate a grand-daughter of sixteen? Give me your opinion as to that, Goswyn."
Again Goswyn von Sydow fixed his eyes upon the picture. "That would depend very much upon the kind of grand-daughter," he said, frowning slightly. "If she were a young girl brought up in the world and accustomed from childhood to works of art, I should say yes. If she were a young girl educated in a convent or bred in the country, I should say no."
The old lady sighed. "I knew it!" she said. "My Böcklin is doomed. Ah!" she exclaimed, wringing her hands in mock despair. "Pray, Goswyn,"--she treated the young officer with the affectionate familiarity an old lady would use towards a young fellow whom she has known intimately from early childhood,--"press that button beside you."
The dragoon, evidently perfectly at home in the house, stretched out a very long arm and pressed the button.