Before leaving the Grieb, she again glanced into the chapel in the
courtyard dedicated to Saint Dorothea, and uttered a swift though silent
prayer for good success, and that her singing might have a deep influence
upon the august hearer.

Meanwhile she scarcely heeded what her friend was saying, and, while
walking at his side the short distance through a part of Red Cock Street
and across the Haidplatz, he had no words from her lips except the
request that he would tell her father of the great honour awaiting her.

Wolf, too, had imposed silence upon himself; it was necessary for the
singer, on the eve of this important performance, to refrain from talking
in the night air.




CHAPTER XV.

Baron Malfalconnet possessed the gift of lending Time wings and using the
simplest incident as the foundation for an entertaining story.

He knew that his Majesty did not like waiting, and the quarter of an hour
which Barbara had mentioned might easily become a longer period. So he
adorned the description of his ride as an envoy most generously with many
partially invented details. Wolf, Herr Peter Schlumperger, Frau
Kastenmayr, his estimable sister, and the party of Ratisbon
excursionists, upon whom he had scarcely bestowed a passing glance,
all played a large and by no means enviable part.