"I have done wrong in rushing to you thus. You will think it unseemly. Will you let me know how soon you can come to me? Do believe, cousin, I would not wittingly do anything to displease you."
I stood silent like a dumb fool; and then after a pause she added:
"I ought to have reflected you would have many things to do, and that I—that I should be in the way. I will go."
"No, don't go," I blurted out, and then could say no more.
She looked at me in justifiable astonishment, and wrinkled her brows in perplexity.
"The Prince was saying as we drove here that he must see you at once, countess," interposed von Krugen, and I could have blessed him for the words. Then he went forward and threw open the door of the room next, and looked round as if inviting us to enter. It was the library.
I shook myself together with an effort and gathered my scattered wits.
"Can you spare me an interview at once?" I asked Minna.
"Cousin!" and her astonishment deepened and found expression in her tone. "Am I not here for that very purpose—and dying to learn the news? Come;" and she went into the room and led the way to the far end, as it chanced to the very window from the embrasure of which I had first seen her. "I hope your first news is that all this plot is at an end, and that the project of the marriage is dead with it?"
I had mastered my stupid embarrassment by this time and had found my tongue again.