He was silent. Many times he tried to speak, but the words would not come, and he lowered his eyes helplessly to his hat, which he held on his knees.
At last Mamma Harfink took his hat from his hand and put it away.
"You will stay to dinner with us?"
"If you will permit me, madam," said he, scarcely audibly.
"Oh, you over-sensitive man!" cried she, with her loud, indelicate sympathy. How she pained him!
"Does Linda think that I am an over-sensitive man?" said he, almost bitterly, and without looking at his future mother-in-law.
Mamma Harfink pondered for a last time. "I do not understand how you could doubt Linda for a moment," replied she.
He scarcely heard her, and only cried hastily "Was she surprised?"
"My dear Lanzberg!" Mrs. Harfink called the Baron as often as possible "her dear Lanzberg," in order to show him that she already included him in her family--"a man who can oppose to his fault a counter-balance such as your whole subsequent life is, has not only expiated his fault but he has obliterated it." Madame Harfink very often spoke of her husband's views, and liked to allow him to participate before the world in her wealth of thought. If she herself could no longer cherish any illusions about him, she nevertheless carefully concealed his nullity from friends as well as she could in a sacred obscurity.
"That may all be true," cried Felix, almost violently, "but nevertheless I cannot expect this philosophical consideration from a young girl. Oh, my dear madam, do you not deceive yourself?"