"How do you dare?" asked Steven, fixing almost awestruck eyes upon Geiger-Hans, who, nursing his instrument upon one knee, was coolly winding up the strings.
"Dare, I?" He twanged the cord, shook his head, and fell to screwing again. "Why should I not dare? What have I to fear? What have I to lose? We are sure of a welcome, I tell you—of a supper, and of a good joke."
"Your magnificent audacity!" said Steven, sitting gingerly down at the end of the bench, and looking at the other's lean figure as if it had been that of the Prince of Lies himself. "Positively, I myself could hardly believe you were not speaking the truth."
"And so I was," said the other, composedly. "Not one word but was solemn verity."
"Oh, but stay! How come I to be kinsman to the Burgravine?"
"You are Austrian," quoth the musician. "So is she, as I happen to know. Both the finest flower of the Empire's aristocracy. If you're not related somewhere ... I'll eat my fiddle."
"Upon my word!" ejaculated Steven, opening his eyes very wide. "I suppose it is on the same kind of plea that you have your acquaintance with the Burgrave. An intimate acquaintance?"
"Intimate. I have said so. The Burgrave of Wellenshausen is a type that is true to itself."
"And he has invited us to visit the Burg?" Steven's tones broke into mirth.
"Indubitably." The player raised his fiddle and drew a long note from it that was a musical mockery of the young man's high key. "The husband who locks up a light-hearted wife alone in a solitary tower invites in terms most positive every gentleman of heart and spirit in the country to come and console her. M. de Wellenshausen is at Halberstadt, on the King's business—I was playing at the Crown Hotel. He will be here to-morrow. And he said to me: 'Friend'—mark you, friend (the Burgrave had dined satisfactorily; the wine is excellent at the Crown), 'you must come and play that tune at my castle.' He's fond of music, you see. 'Twas a promise. And the only person who will lie in the whole matter to-day is the noble lady Burgravine. She is dying by inches of ennui, and she will—be quite certain of it!—she will assure the porter that our visit has indeed been announced to her. 'Tis to be regretted, but such is the way of women who eat their hearts away in lonely strong houses."