"Hortense!" cried the artist, with one spring to the group of women.
And he kissed his betrothed before her mother's eyes, on the forehead,
and so reverently, that the Baroness could not be angry. It was a
better restorative than any smelling salts. Hortense opened her eyes,
saw Wenceslas, and her color came back. In a few minutes she had quite
recovered.
"So this was your secret?" said Lisbeth, smiling at Wenceslas, and
affecting to guess the facts from her two cousins' confusion.
"But how did you steal away my lover?" said she, leading Hortense into
the garden.
Hortense artlessly told the romance of her love. Her father and
mother, she said, being convinced that Lisbeth would never marry, had
authorized the Count's visits. Only Hortense, like a full-blown Agnes,
attributed to chance her purchase of the group and the introduction of
the artist, who, by her account, had insisted on knowing the name of
his first purchaser.
Presently Steinbock came out to join the cousins, and thanked the old
maid effusively for his prompt release. Lisbeth replied Jesuitically
that the creditor having given very vague promises, she had not hoped
to be able to get him out before the morrow, and that the person who
had lent her the money, ashamed, perhaps, of such mean conduct, had
been beforehand with her. The old maid appeared to be perfectly
content, and congratulated Wenceslas on his happiness.
"You bad boy!" said she, before Hortense and her mother, "if you had
only told me the evening before last that you loved my cousin
Hortense, and that she loved you, you would have spared me many tears.
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