"And, aside from all that, Harry is not at all the husband for your niece," Frau Rosamunda went on, didactically. "She is wonderfully well developed intellectually, for her age. And he--well, he is a very good fellow, I have nothing to say against him, but----"
"'A very good fellow'! I should like to know where you could find me a better," cried the major. "In the first place, he is as handsome as a man can be----"
"As if beauty in a man were of any importance!" Frau von Leskjewitsch remarked, loftily.
Paying no attention to this interruption, the major went on reckoning up his favourite's advantages, in an angry crescendo. "He rides like a centaur!" he declared, loudly, and the comparison pleased him so much that he repeated it twice,--"yes, like a centaur; he passed his military examinations as if they had been mere play, and he is considered one of the most brilliant and talented officers in the army. He is a little quick-tempered, but he has the best heart in the world, and he has been in love with Zdena since he was a small boy; while she----"
"Let me advise you to lower your voice a little," said Frau Rosamunda, going to the window, which she partly closed.
"Stuff!" muttered her husband.
"As you please. If you like to make Zdena a subject for gossip, you are quite free to do so, only I would counsel you in that case to consult your crony Krupitschka. He has apparently not lost a single word of your harangue. I saw him from the window just now, staring up here, his mouth wide open, and the Spanish flies crawling out of his bottle and up his sleeves."
With which words and a glance of dignified displeasure, Frau Rosamunda left the room.
"H'm! perhaps I was wrong," thought the major: "women are keener in such matters than we men. 'Tis desirable I should be mistaken, but--I'd wager my gelding's forefoot,--no--" He shook his head, and contemplated the manuscript tied up with blue ribbon. "Let's see," he murmured, as he picked it up and carried it off to his smoking-room.