“When you last met you remember what happened?” she asked, with an ominous hint of emotion in her accents.
“My love, how often have I eggsplained? Zat night you mean, I did schleep in mine hat because I had got a cold in my head. I vas not dronk, no more zan you. Vat you found in my pocket vas a mere joke, and ze cabman who called next day vas jost vat I told him to his ogly face—a blackmail.”
“You gave him money to go away.”
“A Blitzenberg does not bargain mit cabmen,” said the Baron loftily.
His wife's spirits began to revive. There seemed to speak the owner of Fogelschloss, the haughty magnate of Bavaria.
“You have too much self-respect to wish to find yourself in such a position again,” she said. “I know you have, Rudolph!”
The Baron was silent. This appeal met with distinctly less response than she confidently counted upon. In a graver note she inquired—
“You know what mother thinks of Mr. Essington?”
“Your mozzer is a vise old lady, Alicia; but we do not zink ze same on all opinions.”
“She will be exceedingly displeased if you—well, if you do anything that she THOROUGHLY disapproves of.”
The Baron left the window and took his wife's plump hand affectionately within his own broad palm.
“You can assure her, my love, zat I shall never do vat she dislikes. You vill say zat to her if she inquires?”
“Can I, truthfully?”
“Ach, my own dear!”
From his enfolding arms she whispered tenderly—
“Of course I will, Rudolph!”
With a final hug the embrace abruptly ended, and the Baron hastily glanced at his watch.
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