"What does it matter!" she cried with a slight shrug of the shoulders.
"How often we two have waded together in water above our knees, like the
storks! And yet such a thing turns the head of a youth who has returned
from foreign lands a made man, and closes his bearded lips! Have you
given me even a single honest word of welcome? That's the way with all
of you! And you? If you stand there already like a dumb sign-post, how
will it be when I thoroughly turn your head like all the rest with my
singing?"

"I've heard you already!" he answered quickly; "magical, bewildering,
magnificent! Who in the world wrought this miracle with your voice?"

"There we have it!" she cried, laughing merrily and clapping her hands.
"To make you speak, one need only allude distantly to music. That, too,
has remained unchanged, and I am glad, for I have much to ask you in
relation to it. I can learn many things from you still. But what have
you there in your hand? Is it anything pretty from Brabant?" This
question flowed from her lips with coaxing tenderness, and she passed
her soft hand swiftly over his cheek.

How happy it made him!

Hitherto he had been the receiver--nay, an unfair taker--but now he was
to become the giver and she would be pleased with his present.

As if relieved from a nightmare, he now told her that he had gone from
Rome, through the Papal Legate Contarini, whom he had accompanied to
Italy as a secretary skilled in German and music--to the imperial court,
where he now enjoyed the special favour of the Regent of the Netherlands,
the widowed Queen of Hungary; that the royal lady, the sister of the