‘The next time you come to Greifenstein,’ he said, leaning forward again and speaking to his cousin, ‘it will be on the occasion of a very happy event.’
‘Yes,’ answered Frau von Sigmundskron with her gentle smile, ‘I hope so.’
‘I think that if you approve, and if your daughter has no objections--’
‘Objections!’ cried Frau von Greifenstein, suddenly waking from her reverie and turning her face to her companion’s with an engaging simper. ‘As if dear, sweet, beautiful Hilda could have any objections to marrying our Greif! Objections! Ah no, dear cousin, that youthful heart is already on fire!’
The words were uttered with such an affectation of softness that Pretzel did not move, as his mistress anxiously looked to see if he were awake when she had done speaking.
‘No,’ replied the other lady calmly. ‘She has none. But I do not think that was what my cousin Greifenstein meant.’
‘I meant that the marriage might take place early in the new year, if neither you nor your daughter had any objections,’ said Greifenstein.
‘But they have none--she has just told you so! Oh, Hugo, how dull men are, where love is concerned! Why should they object?’
‘Indeed, I cannot see any reason why they should not be married in January,’ said Hilda’s mother. But there was a shade of annoyance in her face, and she bit her lip a little as she bent over her work.
‘Very good, then,’ pursued Greifenstein, as though his wife had not spoken. ‘We will say the first week in January, if it is agreeable to you.’
‘It seems to me,’ observed Frau von Greifenstein with a fine affectation of irony, ‘that I might be consulted too.’
The Lady of Sigmundskron looked up quickly, but Greifenstein seemed to grow calmer than ever.
‘Pardon me, my dear wife,’ he answered, with a rather formal inclination of the head. ‘If you will be as kind as to remember our conversation of last night, you will call to mind that I asked your consent to the arrangement, and that you gave it at once.’
‘Ah yes!’ said Frau von Greifenstein. ‘It is true. I daresay we did speak of it. Ah, you see, the multiplicity of my household cares drives these things from my head!’
Thereupon her face grew vague and expressionless and she looked again at the birds and the butterflies.