tone, gaily continued:

"What I have to ask is not too difficult." As he spoke he passed his
hand kindly over her dark hair, just as he had done a few months before
in the Town Hall.

Then the blood mounted to her brain. Clasping his right hand, beneath
whose touch she had just trembled, in both her own, she passionately
exclaimed:

"Ask whatever you desire. If you wanted to trample my heart under your
feet, I would not stir."

A look of ardent love from her sparkling blue eyes accompanied the words;
but he had withdrawn his hand in astonishment, and raised a lofty barrier
between them by answering coldly and sternly, "Keep the heart and your
dainty self for the equerry Seifried who is an honest man."

The advice, and the lofty austerity with which it was given, pierced Kuni
like the thrust of a dagger. Yet she succeeded controlling herself, and,
without a word reply, preceded the harsh man into the sleeping room and
silently, tearlessly, pointed the chest. When he had taken out the
money, she bowed hastily and ran down the stairs.

Probably she heard him call her name more than three times; doubtless,
afterward she fancied that she remembered how his voice had sounded in
beseeching, tender, at last even imperious tones through the empty
corridors; but she did not turn, and hurried into her room.