How dared the man whom she had so positively and sternly refused venture
to continue his suit? Since the Emperor had loved her, she felt raised
infinitely above the poor nobleman. Nay, she considered it a
reprehensible impropriety that he still sought her. And, besides
what consequences the visit of so stately a ladykiller, whose unusual
height rendered him easily recognised, might now entail upon her!
Suppose that he should meet a messenger from the Emperor on the stairs,
or it should be rumoured at court that she received such visitors. How
quickly whatever happened in Ratisbon was noised abroad among the people
she had just learned through the Woller girls.

The happiness which filled her was so great that everything which
threatened to affect it, even remotely, alarmed her, and thus anxietv
blended with indignation as, deeply agitated, she interrupted her father,
and in the most unfilial manner reproached him for allowing the flattery
of a boastful coxcomb to make him forget what he owned to her and her
good name.

The brave champion of the faith dejectedly, almost humbly, strove to
soothe her, and at least induce her not to offend his guest by unfriendly
words; but she ignored his warnings with defiant passion, and when the
recruiting officer, who had been detained some time on the staircase by
the Wollers, knocked at the door, she shot the bolt noisily, calling to
her father in a tone so loud that it could not fail to be heard outside:
"I repeat it, I will neither see nor speak to this importunate gentleman.
When he attacked me in the street at night, I thought I showed him
plainly enough how I felt. If he forces his way into our house now,
receive him, for aught I care; you have a right to command here. But if
he undertakes to speak to me, he can wait for an answer till the day of