"I missed your visit day before yesterday, and have not been able to return it yet because I have been in service again. An old acquaintance has fallen upon me from the skies, a Baron N----" (he gave the name of Irene's uncle). "I got acquainted with this jolly crony some years ago in Algiers, when, just to get a smell of powder, I was fool enough to take the field against Messieurs les Arabes, although they had never done me the slightest harm in the world. The baron was trying at the time to become a lion-hunter; but he afterward preferred to offer his homage to the king of the desert from a respectful distance, and to travel back to his peaceful home with a skin bought at a bazaar, and a good store of burnooses and shawls. He was the sensible man of the two. For my part, it was a long time before I could get rid of the ugly remembrance that I had really done my hunting in earnest, and had probably deprived several of those poor devils of the pleasure of protecting their native soil against the French invaders. And now my old tent-fellow comes upon me here like a ghost--though a very portly and jolly one--and drags me about with him for days; in fact, I am coming from his hotel at this very moment."
Felix involuntarily gave a glance toward the windows of the hotel. It cost him a hard struggle to suppress all signs of his emotion.
"Does your guest live here?" he asked. "You have been visiting him so early?"
"We were going to take a ride. But I found a note from him, in which he informed me that I might take a holiday. His party has been invited by one of its noble relatives to take an excursion of several days, at which I, thank Heaven, should be quite superfluous."
"His party? Then the baron is--"
"Married? No; but almost worse than that. He has a young niece with him who is really the cause of his having come here at all. A bad story--a broken engagement, great surmising and gossiping about it in the little capital--in short, the health of the Fräulein demanded a change of air, and she insisted upon going off to Italy for a year. My old comrade, who remained a bachelor because he feared the claws of a lioness less than the slipper of a pretty wife--well, he simply jumped from the frying-pan into the fire. This young niece of his rules him with her little finger. The consequence was that the trunks immediately had to be packed for Italy. But, while here, their noble relatives succeeded in frightening them so about the Italian summers and the cholera, that they have decided to wait until the worst of the season is over, spending part of the time here in the city and part in the mountains. You will perceive, my dear friend, what a charming prospect this is for me."
"Is the young Fräulein so unamiable that your 'service' is such a hard task?" Felix remarked, with an attempt at lightness. At the same time he looked abstractedly away from the lieutenant, as if he merely continued the topic from politeness.
"Look here!" continued Schnetz, with his peculiar, dry chuckle. "If you like, I'll introduce you to the young lady, and resign all my rights. You will then have an opportunity to become acquainted with the sweetness of such service, and will perhaps make out better than I, who certainly have not succeeded in winning my way to favor. This proud little person--provided, by-the-way, with a pair of eyes that are equally well fitted to rule, to be gracious, and to condemn one forever--has unfortunately never felt a strong hand over her. The consequence is, she has a way of always setting up her own wishes on every subject, among others in regard to this unfortunate engagement. She appears to have made it so hot for the good youth who had the courage to take up with her, that at last he couldn't stand it any longer. It is very probable that she was sorry for this at heart, and so at the present moment she is in a decidedly irritable and discontented mood, and it is dangerous to touch her without gloves. Unfortunately I neglected to use this consideration; and, as a consequence, we stand on a most charming war-footing toward one another."
He struck his boot impatiently with his riding-whip, put his left arm through his young companion's right, and, striding rapidly forward with his long legs, growled out:
"It's enough to drive a man wild when he sees how God's images are disfigured--whether by saints or devils, it's all the same. Either confined by strait-lacing or by nuns' robes, or else décolletées to the very waist. Believe me, my dear fellow, as far as the education of the women of the upper classes is concerned, we are not much farther advanced to-day than we were in the darkest middle ages, when a brothel stood next door to a church. At least, we, down here in our envied South, are not; though, to be sure, this Northern blood--"