The captain took instant advantage of his opportunity: "You certainly cannot expect to be the first woman who I--hm!--thought had fine eyes?"
But Katrine was very busy with her household accounts, and consequently she had no time at present to indulge in her favourite amusement, a lively discussion.
"Don't agitate yourself, my dear," she rejoined, "but go and write a beautiful letter to Rohritz; and do it quickly, that it may go by to-day's post. Shall I compose it for you?"
"Thanks, I think I am equal to that myself," the captain replied, with a laugh. "Upon my word, a poor dragoon has to put up with a deal from so cultivated a woman."
As he turned to go, Katrine called after him: "I warn you beforehand that I have a weakness for Rohritz. All the rest is your affair. I wash my hands of it."
Nothing so aroused Katrine Leskjewitsch's sarcasm as the problematical conscientiousness of those young wives who combine a decided love for flirtation with a determination to cast all the blame for it upon their husbands, posing in the eyes of the world as suffering angels at the side of black-hearted monsters. Her ridicule of such women was sharp and plentiful.
"A deuce of a woman!" the captain murmured as he betook himself to his library and--rare effort for a dragoon--indited a letter four pages long to his old comrade.
His friend's epistle, strange to say, touched Rohritz. It was so cordial, so frank, and so warmly sympathetic, such a contrast to the formal assurances of sympathy which he met with elsewhere, that he accepted the invitation extended to him, and made his appearance at Erlach Court a week afterwards.
He had been here now for three weeks, and had been really content, especially during the early period of his visit, when he had been alone with his host and hostess. The arrival of the general and Stasy had somewhat annoyed him, and the news of the approach of another detachment of guests consisting, moreover, of a mother and daughter positively irritated him. Good heavens! another mother, another daughter! Was there then no spot upon the face of the globe where one could be safe from mothers and daughters?