Eva shrugged her shoulders.
"It is too bad, though," stormed her mother; "a tête-à-tête upon the sea with a perfect stranger!"
"He only introduced himself to me as a pirate, who had boarded my ship."
"No, my Fräulein," said Blanden, now stepping nearer; "I believed you to be in danger. One ought not to venture upon the sea with an idiot girl."
"There you are right," said the Regierungsrath, suddenly appeased by the stranger coinciding with him, and also reproaching his imprudent daughter.
The former's fashionable appearance made a favourable impression upon the old gentleman, who, as an introduction to friendly relations, offered him a pinch of snuff.
Blanden thanked him with a slight bow.
"Our meeting upon the ocean waves, my Fräulein, was of so poetical a character that I feared to desecrate it by the prose of social forms; permit me, therefore, now only to introduce myself to you and your family. My name is Blanden--Max von Blanden."
The Regierungsrath gave his name.
"I have an additional pleasure in making your acquaintance if you are a relation of that old gentleman to whom the magnificent estates, Rossitten, Kulmitten, and Nehren belong. I used often to be in that neighbourhood; I know the estates, because they border upon a district whither my official duties sometimes lead me; I am, namely, in the third division of the Government, Woods and Forests--that is my branch! Thus I have seen the old proprietor once or twice, and heard his beautiful estates much talked about--a pleasant gentleman."