[CHAPTER VII.]
AN INVITATION.
"My dear Baroness,--
"Will you and all your family give us the pleasure of your company at dinner on Sunday next, at six o'clock? We wish to surprise you with the revelation of a secret that will, we think, interest you.
"I hear you have a friend with you. It would, of course, be an added pleasure if Baron Wenkendorf would join us on Sunday.
"Hoping for a favourable reply, I am
"Sincerely yours,
"Emilie Harfink."
This note the Baroness Leskjewitsch takes from an envelope smelling of violets and adorned with an Edelweiss, and reads aloud in a depressed tone to her husband, her niece, and her cousin, all of whom listen with a more or less contemptuous expression of countenance.
Not that the note is in itself any more awkward and pretentious than other notes of invitation,--no; but the fact that it comes from Baroness Harfink is quite sufficient to make the Zirkow circle suspicious and ironical.