"Continue," said he, "my friend, to develop the growth of those goat legs of yours; it will save you in hosiery.—Pulchrum ornatum, turpes mores.... Need I quote further?"
"Upon my soul!" cried the young man, "I don't understand what you mean!" But his cheek crimsoned.
"You disgraced me to-night," said Geiger-Hans. "What, sir! I have the kindness to bring you up here that you may snatch a delicate, courtlike comedy from a lost century, and you turn it into a gross latter-day romp. I bring you from an alehouse into a castle, but you must needs drag up your Teniers with you and spoil my Watteau! I play you a minuet, but what appeals to you is to clutch and to gambade and——"
"You made the music, man," interrupted Steven, sulky as a schoolboy. "And it was she who asked for a valse."
"Mon Dieu!" went on the fiddler, passionately; "it may be that we were no better as to morals, in my youth, than you are nowadays, but at least we took our pleasure like gentlemen. If we plucked a rose, we did it with a grace—between two fingers; we did not tear it with the fist. We did not seize a lady round the body and prance with her like hind and milkmaid; what favours we took we bent the knee to receive. Oh, sir, how little fragrance remains in the flower you mangle thus in your grasp! Three things there are, young man, that he who understands life must touch with fingers of gossamer—a subtle pleasantry, a lady's discretion, the illusions of a maiden's heart. You have laid brute hands on all three to-night.—Fie! you have spoiled my evening."
The contrast between the man in his humble clothes and the arrogant culture of his speech suddenly struck Steven to such a degree that he forgot to be angry in his eagerness to catch further self-betrayal from the fantastic enigma. Become aware of his eye and smile, the fiddler broke off abruptly and, for the first time in their acquaintance, looked disconcerted. Then he gave a good-humoured laugh, and his brow cleared.
"Blind, blind!" he resumed. "Why, was she not worthy of one look, the child in her virginal grace? When I came across you again to-day, under the shadow of the Burg, my heart leaped like a little hare. 'Here is one now,' I told myself, 'who is learning worthily the value of his youth. He shall yet learn of a better than I: for youth must to youth—the creatures of spring to each other.' I resolved, God willing, that the fair romance that fortune had brought across your path in the forest should not, after all, close at the first page. It was but cloud-building; it was but a spring fancy in an autumn dream—fancy of an old fool! Why, you did not even recognize her! Yet she held your head on her knees, when you were hurt. You were a knight to her, all gallant—and now!"
"She seems an ill-mannered child," said Steven, sullenly.
"She is as lovely as the woods at dawn—young, reluctant, mysterious, chill. When I approach her, it is with my hat in my hand. If I were young like you, I should kneel to her. The set of her head, the line of her little throat——" His voice grew suddenly husky. "Her little throat——" he repeated.
And Steven, he knew not why, had an impression of a sadness so piercing that he dropped his eyes and dared not look at Geiger-Hans again.