“No,” he cried, “no one. I can say no more.”
“Then,” replied the countess, “I suppose the baron did not go to Munkholm.”
Musdœmon, at first surprised like Frederic, had listened attentively. He interrupted the countess.
“Allow me, noble lady. Master Frederic, pray tell me the name of the dependent loved by Schumacker’s daughter.”
He repeated his question; for Frederic, who for some moments had been lost in thought, did not hear him.
“I do not know; or rather--no, I do not know.”
“And how, sir, do you know that she loves a dependent?”
“Did I say so? A dependent?--well, yes; he is a dependent.”
The awkwardness of the lieutenant’s position increased momentarily. This series of questions, the ideas to which they gave rise, his enforced silence, threw him into a confusion which he feared he could not much longer control.
“Upon my word, Mr. Musdœmon, and you, my lady mother, if a mania for asking questions be the latest fashion, you may amuse yourselves by questioning each other. For my part, I’ll have nothing more to say to you.”
And flinging open the door, he disappeared, leaving them plunged in an abyss of doubt. He hastened down into the courtyard, for he heard Musdœmon’s voice calling him back.
He mounted his horse and rode toward the harbor, where he intended to take a boat for Munkholm, thinking that there he might find the stranger who had given rise to such serious thoughts in the greatest feather-brain of a feather-brained capital.
“If that was Ordener Guldenlew,” he reflected, “then my poor Ulrica--But no; it is impossible that he could be such a fool as to prefer the penniless daughter of a prisoner of State to the wealthy daughter of an all-powerful minister. At any rate, Schumacker’s daughter can be no more than a caprice; and there is nothing to hinder a man who has a wife from having a mistress too; in fact, it is quite the stylish thing. But no, it was not Ordener. The viceroy’s son would never wear such a shabby jacket. And that old black plume without a buckle, beaten by the wind and rain! And that great cloak, big enough for a tent! And that disordered hair, with no combs and no frizzes! And those boots with iron spurs, covered with mud and dust! Indeed, it could never be he. Baron Thorwick is a knight of the Dannebrog. That fellow wore no decoration. If I were a knight of the Dannebrog, I believe I should wear the collar of the order to bed. Oh, no! He had never even read ‘Clelia.’ No, it was not the viceroy’s son.”