"We are a contrast, aren't we? Beauty and the Beast, one might almost say. _Na! 's schad't nix._"
I turned away in a little offended pride. Her familiarity annoyed me. What if she were a thousand times cleverer, wittier, better read than I? I did not like her. A shade crossed her face.
"Is it that you are thoroughly unamiable?" said she, in a voice which had reproach in it, "or are all English girls so touchy that they receive a compliment upon their good looks as if it were an offense?"
"I wish you would not talk of my 'good looks' as if I were a dog or a horse!" said I, angrily. "I hate to be flattered. I am no beauty, and do not wish to be treated as if I were."
"Do you always hate it?" said she from the window, whither she had turned. "_Ach!_ there goes Herr Courvoisier!"
The name startled me like a sudden report. I made an eager step forward before I had time to recollect myself--then stopped.
"He is not out of sight yet," said she, with a curious look, "if you wish to see him."
I sat down and made no answer. What prompted her to talk in such a manner? Was it a mere coincidence?
"He is a handsome fellow, _nicht wahr_?" she said, still watching me, while I thought Frau Steinmann never would manage to arrange her cap in the style that pleased her. "But a _Taugenichts_ all the same," pursued Anna as I did not speak. "Don't you think so?" she added.
"A _Taugenichts_--I don't know what that is."
"I do. I will tell you all about him some time."
"I don't wish to know anything about him."
Without further word or look I followed Frau Steinmann down-stairs.
The lady of the house was seated in the midst of a large concourse of old and young ladies, holding her own with a well-seasoned hardihood in the midst of the awful Babel of tongues. What a noise! It smote upon and stunned my confounded ear. Our hostess advanced and led me with a wave of the hand into the center of the room, when she introduced me to about a dozen ladies: and every one in the room stopped talking and working, and stared at me intently and unwinkingly until my name had been pronounced, after which some continued still to stare at me, and commenting openly upon it. Meanwhile I was conducted to a sofa at the end of the room, and requested in a set phrase, "_Bitte, Fräulein, nehmen sie platz auf dem sofa_," with which long custom has since made me familiar, to take my seat upon it. I humbly tried to decline the honor, but Anna Sartorius, behind me, whispered: