"No, his mother was a Fräulein Schmitt, the daughter of a rich tavern-keeper."
"Ah!"
CHAPTER VII.
The Malzins walked home through the park. Fritz looked perturbed. His wife held her head high, and in no agreeable mood chewed at the stalk of a rose which the Conte had cut for her.
"Lotti," Fritz began after a while, "I know that you act without reflection; you were a little imprudent to-day; it would be of no consequence with a man of breeding, but from a man like Capriani a lady must not allow the least familiarity."
"You always find something to lecture me about," she replied sharply. "I have long known that I am not good enough for you. But I must confess that I have never observed that the ladies of your circle are more reserved than those of mine."
"You know none of them," Fritz rejoined with incautious haste.
"You certainly have afforded me no opportunity of knowing them," Charlotte retorted, reddening with anger, "although you probably would have done so, had you not been ashamed of me from the first. Count Truyn has managed to give his wife a position,--but you--you would rather have died than have stirred a finger for me."
This was not literally true, for Fritz had once knocked off the hat of an acquaintance who had forgotten to remove it in Charlotte's presence; on one occasion he had fought a duel on her account, and on another had horsewhipped a slandering editor, but it was substantially true that he had made not the smallest effort to introduce her to his world. He made no reply now to her reproaches, hung his head, and pulled at his moustache. She went on with angry volubility. "You were ashamed to walk in the street with me, and when you took me to the theatre you always hid yourself in the back of the box, and every day you had some fault to find with my ways. I have watched your aristocratic ladies at the races, at the theatre, and at artist's festivals--and their manners are as free--and it must out--as ill-bred ...."
"The ill-breeding of a lady of rank," Fritz interrupted her impatiently "extends usually only as far as the good-breeding of the man with whom she chances to be."