"Strange!" said Michael. "And this count! The whirlwind take him and all his ancient family pedigree away together! Do you know this count? And is there any count in all the wide world who loves you as well as I do?"
"You?" said Esther, lifting her tearful eyes; "but you see you never told me you did."
"I have told you!" said Michael, impetuously seizing Esther's hand and covering it with kisses; "every word I have uttered has told you so, ever since I first saw you. Ah! you might have understood me, because—I was once a beggar boy, how could I speak more plainly? I have no family pedigree, and I shall never be a Supreme Count," he finished gloomily.
"Is it true?" said Esther, blushing very prettily, but looking several shades less melancholy than before.
"Why shouldn't it be true, my star? Of course it is true! Don't you believe me?" said Michael, drawing her to himself. "But I am the son of poor parents, only a beggar boy, and that abominable count, hang him! may—what was I going to say?—well, anyhow, may the grasshoppers fall upon him!"
"Michael," said Esther, a little shyly, "if you do love me—but understand well, I mean really love me, really and truly—well then, I will just confess that I love you too, with all my heart, truly, as my life. You are more to me than all the counts in the world, for you are my Supreme Count; and even if you can't point to a line of ancestors, what does it signify? Somebody has to make a beginning, and you are making your own name; surely that is a great deal more than merely inheriting it! Besides, your family pedigree is as long as any one's in the world after all; for it reaches back to old Father Adam, and no one can go further."
At that moment Euphrosyne reappeared with the lights; but Michael cared little for her, now that he had found out what he wanted to know. Esther cared for him; what else could possibly matter?
"I must go to the king," said Michael. "He has always been most gracious to me, and why should he want to crush me now, after being the making of me? Why should he make my heart bitter, when it beats true to him and to my love? Don't be sad, my star. I will see him to-morrow, and tell him everything. He is so good, so kind, and so just! and it wouldn't be just to take you away from me, after bringing you here and letting us learn to know one another. If I only knew which count it was! but there are more than fifty. There is not one of them, though, that found you out in Mr. Samson's castle, and you never sang any of their songs, did you now? Did any one ever make songs for you but me?"
"No one! I don't know any count, unless the old gentleman who escorted us was one, and I hardly spoke to him."
But just then they were interrupted, for the door opened, and one of the royal pages stepped in.