It is difficult to talk while riding rapidly; but Malfalconnet was master
of the power of speech under any circumstances, and the courtier, with
ready presence of mind, meant to avail himself of the opportunity to win
the favour of the woman whose good will might become a precious
possession.

But he was not to accomplish this, for, when he addressed the first
question to Barbara, she curtly replied that she did not like to talk
while her horse was trotting.

Wolf thought of the loud voice which had reached him a short time before
from the midst of the Ratisbon party, but he said nothing, and the baron
henceforward contented himself with occasionally uttering a few words.

The whole ride probably occupied only a quarter of an hour, but what a
flood of thoughts and feelings swept in this short time through Barbara's
soul!

She had just been enraged with herself for her defiance and the reckless
haste which perhaps had forever deprived her of the opportunity to show
the Emperor Charles her skill as a singer. The cruel anxiety which
tortured her on this account had urged her at Prufening to the loud
forwardness which hitherto she had always shunned. She had undoubtedly
noticed how deeply this had lowered her in Frau Kastenmayr's esteem, and
the discovery had been painful and wounded her vanity; but what did she
care now for her, for her brother, for all Ratisbon? She was riding
toward the great man who longed to see her, and to whom--she herself
scarcely knew whence she gained the courage--she felt that she belonged.

She had looked up to him as to a mountain peak whose jagged summit