“Because Plato’s out of fashion, if ever he was in, among human beings with red blood in their veins; and because, as I said, the Emperor is above all else a man of honor. Besides, I doubt that any woman, no matter how pretty or young, could wield a really powerful influence over his life.”
“You doubt that? Then you don’t know the Emperor; and you’ve forgotten some of the traditions of his house.”
“Are you trying to warn me of disaster, Baroness?”
She laughed. “Oh, dear no. Of nothing disagreeable. But I should be sorry to think, as you seem to do, that our Emperor has no youth in his veins.”
“I think nothing of the sort. What I do think is that my teachings have not been in vain, and that he has grown up to put his duty to his country and his own self-respect above everything. He’s a strong man – too strong to be trapped in the meshes of any pink and white Vivien. And if he admired a young woman not of Royal blood, he would keep his distance for her sake. You say this English miss is with her mother at the principal hotel of Kronburg. If Leopold constantly visited them there we should have a scandal. On the other hand, to suggest meeting the girl outside, or incognito, would be an insult. Either way he would be but poorly rewarding a woman who saved his life.”
Baroness von Lyndal’s color rallied to the support of her rouge, and her smile dwindled to inanity, for she had insisted upon the argument, and it was going against her.
In her haste to vex the Chancellor, she had not stopped to study from every side the question she had raised. So far, she had merely succeeded in irritating him, and she owed him much more than a pin prick. Such infinitesimal wounds she had contrived to give the man in abundance, during her twenty-two years at the Rhaetian Court; but now, if she hurt him at all, she would like the stab to be deep and memorable.
To be sure, in beginning the conversation, she had thought of nothing more than a momentary gratification, but the very heat of the argument into which she had thrown herself had warmed her malice, and sharpened the weapon of her wit. She could justify her expressed opinion only by events, and it occurred to her that she might be able to shape events in such a way that she could say with eyes, if not in words, “I told you so.”
Her fading smile brightened. “Dear Chancellor, you do well to have faith in your Imperial pupil,” said she. “You’ve helped to make him what he is, and you’re ready to keep him what he should be. I suppose, even, that if, being but a young man and having the hot blood of his race, he should stray into a primrose path, you would take advantage of old friendship to – er – put up sign-posts and barriers?”
“Were there the slightest chance of such necessity arising,” grumbled the Chancellor, shrugging his shoulders.
“It’s like your integrity and courage. What a comfort, then, that the necessity is so unlikely to arise.”
The old man looked at her with level gaze, the ruthless look that brushes away a woman’s paint and powder, and coldly counts the wrinkles underneath. “I must have misunderstood you then, a moment ago,” he said. “I thought your argument was all the other way round, madam?”
“I told you I was amusing myself. What can one do at a ball, when one has reached the age when it would be foolish to dance? Why, I believe that Lady Mowbray and her daughter are not remaining long in Kronburg.”
At last she was able to judge that she had given the Chancellor a few uneasy moments, for his eyes brightened visibly with relief. “Ah,” he returned, “then they are going out of Rhaetia?”
“Not exactly that,” said the Baroness, slowly, pleasantly, and distinctly. “I hear that they’ve been asked to the country to visit one of his Majesty’s oldest friends.”
Leopold was not supposed to care for dancing, though he danced – as it was his pride to do all things – well. Certainly there was often a perfunctoriness about his manner in a ball-room, a suggestion of the soldier on duty in his unsmiling face, and his readiness to lead a partner to her seat when a dance was over.
But to-night a new Leopold moved to the music. A girl’s white arm on his – that slender arm which had been quick and firm as a man’s in his defense; the perfume of a girl’s hair, and the gold glints upon it; the shadow of a girl’s dark lashes, and the light in a pair of gray eyes when they were lifted; the beating of a girl’s heart near him; the springtime grace of a girl’s sweet youth in its contrast with the voluptuous summer of Rhaetian types of beauty; the warm rose that spread upwards from a girl’s childlike dimples to the womanly arch of her brows; all these charms and more which rendered one girl a hundred times adorable, took hold of him, and made him not an Emperor, but a man, unarmored.
When the music ceased, he fancied for an instant that some accident had befallen the musicians. Then, when he realized that the end of the dance had come in its due time, he remembered with pleasure a rule of his court, established in the days of those who had been before him. After each dance an interval of ten minutes was allowed before the beginning of another. Ten minutes are not much to a man who has things to say which could hardly be said in ten hours; still, they are something; and to waste even one would be like spilling a drop of precious elixir from a tiny bottle containing but nine other drops.
They had scarcely spoken yet, except for commonplaces which any one might have overheard, since the day on the mountain; and in this first moment of the ten, each was wondering whether or no that day should be ignored between them. Leopold did not feel that it should be spoken of, for it was possible that the girl did not recognize the chamois hunter in the Emperor; and Virginia did not feel that she could speak of it. But then, few things turn out as people feel they should.
Next to the throne room was the ball-room; and beyond was another known as the “Waldsaal,” which Leopold had fitted up for the gratification of a fancy. It was named the “Waldsaal” because it represented a wood. Walls and ceiling were masked with thick-growing creepers trained over invisible wires, through which peeped stars of electric light, like the chequerings of sunshine between netted branches. Trees grew up, with their roots in boxes hidden beneath the moss-covered floor. There were grottoes of ivy-draped rock in the corners, and here and there out from leafy shadows glittered the glass eyes of birds and animals – eagles, stags, chamois, wolves and bears – which the Emperor had shot.
This strange room, so vast as to seem empty when dozens of people wandered beneath its trees and among its rock grottoes, was thrown open to guests whenever a ball was given at the palace; but the conservatories and palm houses were more popular; and when Leopold brought Miss Mowbray to the Waldsaal after their dance, it was in the hope that they might not be disturbed.
She was lovelier than ever in her white dress, under the trees, looking up at him with a wonderful look in her eyes, and the young man’s calmness was mastered by the beating of his blood.
“This is a kind of madness,” he said to himself. “It will pass. It must pass.” And aloud, – meaning all the while to say something different and commonplace, – the real words in his mind broke through the crust of conventionality. “Why did you do it?”
Virginia’s eyes widened. “I don’t understand.” Then, in an instant, she found that she did understand. She knew, too, that the question had asked itself in spite of him, but that once it had been uttered he would stand to his guns.
“I mean the thing I shall have to thank you for always.”
If Virginia had had time to think, she might have prepared some pretty answer; but, there being no time, her response came as his question had, from the heart. “I couldn’t help doing it.”
“You couldn’t help risking your life to – ” He dared not finish.
“It was to save – ” Nor was there any end for her sentence.
Then perhaps it was not strange that he forgot certain restrictions which a Royal man, in conversing with a commoner, is not supposed to forget. In fact, he forgot that he was Royal, or that she was not, and his voice grew unsteady, his tone eager, as if he had been some poor subaltern with the girl of his first love.
“There’s something I must show you,” he said. Opening a button of the military coat blazing with jewels and orders, he drew out a loop of thin gold chain. At the end dangled a small, bright thing that flashed under a star of electric light.
“My ring!” breathed Virginia.
Thus died the Emperor’s intention to ignore the day that had been theirs together.
“Your ring! You gave it to Leo. He kept it. He will always keep it. Have I surprised you?”
Virginia felt it would be best to say “yes,” but instead she answered “no”; for pretty, white fibs cannot be told under such a look in a man’s eyes, by a girl who loves him.
“I have not? When did you guess the truth? Yesterday, or – ”
“At Alleheiligen.”
Silence fell for a minute, while Leopold digested the answer, and its full meaning. He remembered the bread and ham; the cow he could not milk; the rücksacks he had carried. He remembered everything – and laughed.
“You knew, at Alleheiligen? Not on the mountain, when – ”
“Yes. I guessed even then, I confess. Oh, I don’t mean that I went there expecting to find you. I didn’t. I think I shouldn’t have gone, had I known. Every one believed you were at Melinabad. But when I tumbled down and you saved me, I looked up, and – of course I’d seen your picture, and one reads in the papers that you’re fond of chamois hunting. I couldn’t help guessing – oh, I’m sorry you asked me this!”
“Why?”
“Because – one might have to be afraid of an Emperor if he were angry.”
“Do I look angry?”
Their eyes met again, laughing at first, then each finding unexpected depths in those of the other which drove away laughter. Something in Leopold’s breast seemed alive and struggling to be free from restraint, like a fierce, wild bird. He shut his lips tightly, breathing hard. Both forgot that a question had been asked; but it was Virginia who spoke first, since it is easier for a woman than a man to hide feeling.
“I wonder why you kept the ring after my – impertinence.”
“I had a good reason for keeping it.”
“Won’t you tell me?”
“You’re quick at forming conclusions, Miss Mowbray. Can’t you guess?”
“To remind you to beware of strange young women on mountains.”
“No.”
“Because your own picture is inside?”
“It was a better reason than that.”
“Am I not to ask it?”
“On that day, you asked what you chose. All the more should you do so now, since there’s nothing I could refuse you.”
“Not the half of your Kingdom – like the Royal men in fairy stories?”
As soon as the words were out Virginia would have given much to have them back. She had not thought of a meaning they might convey; but she tried not to blush, lest he should think of it now. Nevertheless he did think of it, and the light words, striking a chord they had not aimed to touch, went echoing on and on, till they reached that part of himself which the Emperor knew least about – his heart.
“Half his Kingdom?” Yes, he would give it to this girl, if he could. Heavens, what it would be to share it with her!
“Ask anything you will,” he said, as a man speaks in a dream.
“Then tell me – why you kept the ring.”
“Because the only woman I ever cared – to make my friend, took it from her finger and gave it to me.”
“Now the Emperor is pleased to pay compliments.”
“You know I am sincere.”
“But you’d seen me only for an hour. Instead of deserving your friendship, I’m afraid I – ”
“For one hour? That’s true. And how long ago is that one hour? A week or so, I suppose, as Time counts. But then came yesterday, and the thing you did for me. Now, I’ve known you always.”
“If you had, perhaps you wouldn’t want me for your friend.”
“I do want you.”
The words would come. It was true – already. He did want her. But not as a friend. His world, – a world without women, without passion fiery enough to devour principles or traditions, was upside down.
It was well that the ten minutes’ grace between dances was over, and the music for the next about to begin. A young officer, Count von Breitstein’s half-brother – who was to be Miss Mowbray’s partner – appeared in the distance, looking for her; but stopped, seeing that she was still with the Emperor.
“Good-by,” said Virginia, while her words could still be only for the ears of Leopold.
“Not good-by. We’re friends.”
“Yes. But we sha’n’t meet often.”
“Why? Are you leaving Kronburg?”
“Perhaps – soon. I don’t know.”
“I must see you again. I will see you once more, whatever comes.”
“Once more, perhaps. I hope so, but – ”
“After that – ”
“Who knows?”
“Once more – once more!” The words echoed in Virginia’s ears. She heard them through everything, as one hears the undertone of a mountain torrent, though a brass band may bray to drown its deep music.
Once more he would see her, whatever might come. She could guess why it might be only once, though he would fain have that once again and again repeated. For this game of hers, begun with such a light heart, was more difficult to play than she had dreamed.
If she could but be sure he cared; if he would tell her so, in words, and not with eyes alone, the rest might be easy, although at best she could not see the end. Yet how, in honor, could he tell Miss Helen Mowbray that he cared? And if the telling were not to be in honor, how could she bear to live her life?
“Once more!” What would happen in that “once more?” Perhaps nothing save a repetition of grateful thanks, and courteous words akin to a farewell.
To be sure Lady Mowbray and her daughter might run away, and the negotiations between the Emperor’s advisers and the Grand Duchess of Baumenburg-Drippe for the Princess Virginia’s hand might be allowed to go on, as if no outside influence had ruffled the peaceful current of events. Then, in the end, a surprise would come for Leopold; wilful Virginia would have played her little comedy, and all might be said to end well. But Virginia’s heart refused to be satisfied with so tame a last chapter, a finish to her romance so conventional as to be distastefully obvious, almost if not quite a failure.
She had begun to drink a sweet and stimulating draught – she who had been brought up on milk and water – and she was reluctant to put down the cup, still half full of sparkling nectar.
“Once more!” If only that once could be magnified into many times. If she could have her chance – her “fling,” like the lucky girls who were not Royal!
So she was thinking in the carriage by her mother’s side, and the Grand Duchess had to speak twice, before her daughter knew their silence had been broken.
“I forgot to tell you something, Virginia.”
“Ye-es, Mother?”
“Your great success has made me absent-minded, child. You looked like a shining white lily among all those handsome, overblown Rhaetian women.”
“Thank you, dear. Was that what you forgot to say?”
“Oh no! It was this. The Baroness von Lyndal has been most kind. She urges us to give up our rooms at the hotel, on the first of next week, and join her house party at Schloss Lyndalberg. It’s only a few miles out of town. What do you think of the plan?”
“Leave – Kronburg?”
“She’s asked a number of friends – to meet the Emperor.”
“Oh! He didn’t speak of it – when we danced.”
“But she has mentioned it to him since, no doubt, – before giving me the invitation. Intimate friend of his as she is, she wouldn’t dare ask people to meet him, if he hadn’t first sanctioned the suggestion. Still, she can afford to be more or less informal. The Baroness was dancing with the Emperor, I remember now, just before she came to me. They were talking together quite earnestly. I can recall the expression of his face.”
“Was it pleased, or – ”
“I was wondering what she could have said to make him look so happy. Perhaps – ”
“What answer did you give Baroness von Lyndal?”
“I told her – I thought you wouldn’t mind – I told her we would go.”
CHAPTER IX
IRON HEART AT HOME
Schloss Lyndalberg towers high on a promontory, overlooking a lake, seven or eight miles to the south of the Rhaetian capital. The castle is comparatively modern, with pointed turrets and fretted minarets, and, being built of white, Carrara marble, throws a reflection snowy as a submerged swan, into the clear green water of the Mömmelsee. All the surroundings of the palace, from its broad terraces to its jeweled fountains and well-nigh tropical gardens, suggest luxury, gaiety, pleasure.
But, on the opposite bank of the Mömmelsee is huddled the dark shape of an ancient fortified stronghold, begun no one remembers how many centuries ago by the first Count von Breitstein. Generation following generation, the men of that family completed the work, until nowadays it is difficult to know where the rock ends, and the castle begins. There, like a dragon squatting on the coils of its own tail, the dark mass is poised, its deep-set window-eyes glaring across the bright water at the white splendor of Lyndalberg, like the malevolent stare of the monster waiting to spring upon and devour a fair young maiden.
The moods of Baroness von Lyndal concerning grim old Schloss Breitstein had varied many times during her years of residence by the lake. Sometimes she pleased herself by reflecting that the great man who had slighted her lived in less luxury than she had attained by her excellent marriage. Again, the thought of the ancient lineage of the present Count von Breitstein filled her with envy; and oftener than all, the feeling that the “old grizzly bear” could crouch in his den and watch sneeringly everything which happened at Lyndalberg got upon the lady’s nerves. She could have screamed and shaken her fist at the dark mass of rock and stone across the water. But after the birthday ball and during the first days of Leopold’s visit at her house, she often threw a whimsical glance at the grim silhouette against the northern sky, and smiled.
“Can you see, old bear?” she would ask, gayly. “Are you spying over there? Do you think yourself all-wise and all-powerful? Do you see what’s in my mind now, and do you guess partly why I’ve taken all this trouble? Are you racking your brain for some way of spoiling my little plans? But you can’t do it, you know. It’s too late. There’s nothing you can do, except sit still and growl, and glare at your own claws – which a woman has clipped. How do you like the outlook, old bear? Do you lie awake at night and study how to save your scheme for the Emperor’s marriage? All your grumpy old life you’ve despised women; but now you’re beginning at last to find out that powerful as you are, there are some things a woman with tact and money, nice houses and a good-natured husband can do, which the highest statesman in the land can’t undo. How soon shall I make you admit that, Chancellor Bear?”
Thus the Baroness, standing at her drawing-room window, would amuse herself in odd moments, when she was not arranging original and elaborate entertainments for her guests. And she congratulated herself particularly on having had the forethought to invite Egon von Breitstein, the Chancellor’s half-brother.
There was a barrier of thirty-six years’ difference in age between the two, and they had never been friends in the true sense of the word, for the old man was temperamentally unable to sympathize with the tastes, or understand the temptations of the younger brother, and the younger man was mentally unable to appreciate the qualities of the elder.
Nevertheless it was rumored at court that Iron Heart had more than once used the gay and good-looking Captain of Cavalry for a catspaw in pulling some very big and hot chestnuts out of the fire. At all events “Handsome Egon,” so known among his followers, “the Chancellor’s Jackal” (thus nicknamed by his enemies) would have found difficulty in keeping up appearances without the allowance granted by his powerful half-brother. The ill-assorted pair were often in communication, and the Baroness liked to think that news fresh from Lyndalberg must sooner or later be wafted like a wind-blown scent of roses across the water to Schloss Breitstein.
She was still less displeased than surprised, therefore, when – the Emperor having been three days at Lyndalberg, with two more days of his visit to run – an urgent message arrived for Captain von Breitstein from his brother.
Poor old Lorenz was wrestling with his enemy gout, it appeared, and wished for Egon’s immediate presence.
Such a summons could not be neglected. Egon’s whole future depended upon his half-brother’s caprice, he hinted to the Baroness in asking leave to desert her pleasant party for a few hours. So of course she sent the Chancellor her regrets, with the Baron’s; and Egon went off charged with a friendly message from the Emperor as well.
When the Captain of Cavalry had set out from Lyndalberg to Schloss Breitstein by the shortest way – across the lake in a smart little motor-boat – promising to be back in time for dinner and a concert, the Baroness spent all her energy in getting up an impromptu riding-party, which would give Leopold the chance of another tête-a-tête with Miss Mowbray.
Already many such chances had been arranged, so cleverly as not to excite gossip; and if the flirtation (destined by the hostess to disgust Leopold with his Chancellor’s matrimonial projects) did not advance by leaps and bounds, it was certainly not the fault of Baroness von Lyndal.
“Egon has been told to use his eyes and ears for all they’re worth at Lyndalberg, and now he’s called upon to hand in his first report,” she said to herself, when the younger von Breitstein was off on his mission across the lake.
But for once, at least, the “Chancellor’s Jackal” was wronged by unjust suspicion. He arrived at Schloss Breitstein ignorant of his brother’s motive in sending for him, though he shrewdly suspected it to be something quite different from the one alleged.
The Chancellor was in his study, a deep windowed, tower room, with walls book-lined nearly to the cross-beamed ceiling. He sat reading a budget of letters when Egon was announced, and if he were really ill, he did not betray his suffering. The square face, with its beetling brows, eyes of somber fire, and forehead impressive as a cathedral dome, showed no new lines graven by pain.
“Sit down, Egon,” he said, abruptly, tearing in half an envelope stamped with the head of Hungaria’s King. “I’ll be ready for you in a moment.”
The young man took the least uncomfortable chair in the room, which from his point of view was to say little in its favor; because the newest piece of furniture there, has been made a hundred years before the world understood that lounging was not a crime. Over the high, stone mantel hung a shield, so brightly polished as to fulfil the office of a mirror, and from where Egon sat, perforce upright and rigid, he could see himself vignetted in reflection.
He admired his fresh color, which was like a girl’s, pointed the waxed ends of his mustache with nervous, cigarette-stained fingers, and thinking of many agreeable things, from baccarat to roulette, from roulette to races, and races to pretty women, he wondered which he had to thank for this summons to the Chancellor. Unfortunately, brother Lorenz knew everything; one’s pleasant peccadilloes buzzed to his ears like flies; there was little hope of deceiving him.
Egon sighed, and his eyes turned mechanically from his own visage on shining steel, to the letter held in an old hand so veined that it reminded the young man of a rock netted with the sprawling roots of ancient trees. He had just time to recognize the writing as that of Adalbert, Crown Prince of Hungaria, whom he knew slightly, when keen eyes curtained with furled and wrinkled lids, glanced up from the letter.
“It’s coming,” thought Egon. “What can the old chap have found out?”
But to his surprise the Chancellor’s first words had no connection with him or his misdeeds.
“So our Emperor is amusing himself at Lyndalberg?”
Egon’s face brightened. He could be cunning in emergencies, but he was not clever, and always he felt himself at a disadvantage with the old statesman. Unless he had a special favor to ask, he generally preferred discussing the affairs of others with the Chancellor, rather than allowing attention to be attracted to his own. “Oh yes,” he answered, brightly. “His Majesty is amusing himself uncommonly well. I never saw him in as brilliant spirits. But you, dear Lorenz. Tell me about yourself. Is your gout – ”
“The devil take my gout!”
Egon started. “A good thing if he did, provided he left you behind,” he retorted, meaning exactly the opposite, as he often did when trying to measure wits with the Chancellor. “But you sent for me – ”
“Don’t tell me you supposed I sent for you because I wanted consolation or condolence?”
“No-o,” laughed Egon, uneasily. “I fancied there was some other more pressing reason. But I’m bound in common courtesy to take your sincerity for granted until you undeceive me.”
“Hang common courtesy between you and me,” returned the Bear. “I’ve nothing to conceal. I sent for you to tell me what mischief that witch-cat Mechtilde von Lyndal is plotting. You’re on the spot. Trust you for seeing everything that goes on – the one thing I would trust you to do.”
“Thanks,” said Egon.
“Don’t thank me yet, however grateful you may be. But I don’t mind hinting that it won’t be the worse for you, if for once you’ve used those fine eyes of yours to some useful purpose.”
Egon was genuinely astonished at this turn of the conversation, as he had been carefully arming himself against a personal attack from any one of several directions. He sat pointing the sharp ends of his mustache, one after the other, and trying to remember some striking incident with which to adorn a more or less accurate narrative.
“What would you call useful?” he inquired at last.
The Chancellor answered, but indirectly. “Has the Emperor been playing the fool at Lyndalberg, these last few days?”
“Do you want to make me guilty of lèse Majesté?” Egon raised his eyebrows; but he was recovering presence of mind. “If by playing the fool, though, you mean falling in love, why then, brother, I should say he had done little else during the three days; and perhaps even the first of those was not the beginning.”
The Chancellor growled out a word which he would hardly have uttered in the Imperial presence, particularly in the connection he suggested. “Let me hear exactly what has been going on from day’s end to day’s end,” he commanded.
Egon grew thoughtful once more. Clearly, here was the explanation of the summons. He was to be let off easily, it appeared; but, suspense relieved, he was not ready to be satisfied with negative blessings.
“Are you sure it isn’t a bit like telling tales out of school?” he objected.
“School-boys – with empty pockets – have been known to do that,” said the Chancellor. “But perhaps your pockets aren’t empty – eh?”
“They’re in a chronic state of emptiness,” groaned Egon.
“On the fifteenth day of October your quarterly allowance will be paid,” remarked his brother. “I would increase the instalment by the amount of five thousand gulden, if that would make it worth your while to talk – and forget nothing but your scruples.”
“Oh, you know I’m always delighted to please you!” exclaimed Egon. “It’s only natural, living the monotonous life you do when you’re not busy with the affairs of state, that you should like to hear what goes on in the world outside. Of course, I’ll gladly do my best as a raconteur.”
“My dear young man, don’t lie,” said the Chancellor. “The habit is growing on you. You lie even to yourself. By and by you’ll believe yourself, and then all hope for your soul will be over. What I want to know is; how far the Emperor has gone in his infatuation for this English girl. I’m not afraid to speak plainly to you, so you may safely – and profitably – do the same with me. In the first place I’ll put you at your ease by making a humiliating confession. The other night the woman von Lyndal tried to ‘draw me,’ as she would express it, on this subject, and I’m bitterly mortified to say she partly succeeded. She suggested an entanglement between Leopold and the girl. I replied that Leopold wasn’t the man to pull down a hornet’s nest of gossip around the ears of a young woman who had saved his life. No matter what his inclinations might be, I insisted that he would pay her no repeated visits. This thrust the fair Mechtilde parried – as if repeating a mere rumor – by saying that she believed the girl was to stay at the country house of some old friend of the Emperor. At the time, I attached little importance to her chatter, believing that she merely wished to give me a spiteful slap or two, as is her habit when she has the chance. For once, though, she has succeeded in stealing a march upon me; and she kept the secret of her plan until too late for me to have any hope of preventing Leopold from fulfilling his engagement at her house. After that was safely arranged, I don’t doubt she was overjoyed that I should guess her plot.”
“Do you think that, even if you’d known sooner, you could have stopped the Emperor from visiting at Lyndalberg?” asked Egon. “I know that you are iron; but he is steel.”
“I would have stopped him,” returned the Chancellor. “I should have made no bones about the reason; for I’ve found that the best way with Leopold is to blurt out the whole truth, and fight him – my experience against his will. If advice and warning hadn’t sufficed to restrain him from insulting the girl who is to be his wife, and injuring the reputation of the girl who never can be, I would have devised some expedient to thwart him, for his own good. I’m not a man to give up when I feel that I am right.”
“Neither is he,” Egon added. “But since you seem so determined to nip this dainty blossom of love in the bud, we’ll hope it’s not yet too late for a sharp frost to blight it.”