"You are all cowards!" she rejoined, and then seated herself with head erect and knitted brows on the left of the Freiherr, for whom she seemed no longer to have any existence. The meal was very monosyllabic. Now and then Otto would whisper something to Johanna, and she would listen with a smile. Then Johann Leopold, who looked paler and more weary than usual, would look up from his plate, gaze at her, and then sink again into his usual apathy, from which Magelone to-day did not try to rouse him. When they went to the drawing-room she left Johann Leopold, and, approaching Otto, said, "Pray suggest some folly to me,--I am dying of ennui." "'Ah! fly with me, and be my love,'" he began to sing in an undertone, and his eyes expressed the passion which was suppressed in his half-teasing voice. Magelone shrugged her shoulders. "Nonsense! even the poet himself called that tragedy," she replied. "I want something merry to do. But you are afflicted with the Dönninghausen stupidity." "How unjust!" cried Otto. "Was it not a merry thing to whisk you away from Klausenburg--right from under Johann Leopold's long nose--into the sleigh with me, and drive off with you?" Magelone laughed. Otto continued passionately: "I should have liked to carry you off to the end of the world. The thought of seeing you in Johann Leopold's arms makes me frantic. Why do you look at me so disdainfully, and what does that smile mean?" "Perhaps it means what did you whisper to Johanna at table with just the same look you wear at present?" "I thought I was to obey orders and pay court to her," said Otto. "Do you command the contrary?" "Indeed I do not." "It really would be better to continue the farce," Otto went on in a graver tone. "Johann Leopold's jealousy is evident; it would be better to lead him upon a false scent----" "And beguile two female hearts at the same time," Magelone interposed, laughing. "Oh, Don Juan, Don Juan!" "Play the 'Don Giovanni' overture," Otto begged her. "You play it magnificently." "Not to-day. There must be nothing but chorales to-day," she said. And with a coquettish glance she turned away towards the fire, where were her cousins and Aunt Thekla. During this conversation Johann Leopold had approached Johanna at her coffee-table. "How do you like your new cousin?" he asked; "but I need hardly ask, for you seem to have become excellent friends with him since last evening." "Not quite since last evening," Johanna replied, blushing slightly. "He came to see me just after my father's death, and was so kind----" "I can easily imagine it," Johann Leopold interrupted her. "He knows how to strike the right chord everywhere, modern Piper of Hamelin that he is. Have a care of him."