“Do you think so? If everything ends like the Zedwitz affair, it would be better if she turned her mind to something rational. You know,” she added, lowering her voice confidentially, “you know that at Seon, and also here, she encouraged Count Max Zedwitz in every possible manner; met him in the cloisters, and sat beside him at table every day at Seon, and here let him know every time she went on a walking party——” “I think,” said Hamilton “you are rather mistaken in supposing that she——” “Oh, I am not at all mistaken. She made him, in the most artful, deliberate manner, so in love that he actually took it into his head to marry her. Such an idea, you know! And his father a knight of St. George, and all that.” “I was not aware that his father being a knight of St. George could make any difference.” “What! When they can prove sixteen noble generations on both sides! When Count Max can become a knight of St. George whenever he pleases! When marrying a person who is not noble would deprive his children and children’s children of the right of claiming an order which can be obtained on no other terms.” “Ah, I understand.” “Hildegarde,” continued Madame Berger, “was always desperately proud, and her greatest ambition is to marry some one of rank. A man must be a count or baron at least before she thinks him worthy of her notice. Now, such a man as Count Zedwitz was just what she wished, and she persuaded him to write a letter making her a formal offer of his hand; this she exhibited in triumph to her father, who, however, had received about the same time from the old Count a most furious epistle, telling him that his son’s fortune and rank entitled him to look for a wife among the first families in Germany—that a marriage with Mademoiselle Rosenberg now, or at any future period, was totally out of the question. He supposed that Mr. Rosenberg would not desire any other sort of connection for his daughter, and therefore had better join him in putting an end to any further intimacy. This, with a few other impertinences of the same description, made even good, quiet Mr. Rosenberg outrageous, and he insisted on Hildegarde’s refusing Count Max—if that be called a refusal where marriage was a chimera!” “Not so much a chimera as you imagine,” said Hamilton, “for Zedwitz had procured the necessary security—as I happen to know, for he himself told me so at Edelhof—and his father cannot disinherit him.” “So! Well, if that be the case, Mr. Rosenberg might as well have pocketed the affront—namely, the letter, and let his daughter marry him. Perhaps, after his anger has cooled, he may wish he had acted differently, or at least wish that he had left an opening for a renewal of the affair.” “Hildegarde has made a great sacrifice to please her father,” observed Hamilton. “Not so great as you suppose; for Crescenz told me that she was quite as angry as her father about the letter.” “Of that I have no doubt; but, nevertheless, the sacrifice was great.”