"Yes; a good kiss. It wouldn't be any better from the queen's lips than from yours; and there I'm like the king, too, especially when I'm as nicely shaved as today," he added, taking his wife's hand and passing it over his smooth chin.
"You're right; but I didn't mean to say it that way. Love's the same, too. It can't be different up there from what it is here."
"I don't know what's come over you," said Hansei. "I never thought you were such a witch, so clever and so wide-awake. It provokes me that people should be so familiar with you, and treat you as if you were still the same old Walpurga."
"You ought to be glad that I'm still the same, or else I shouldn't be your wife."
Hansei stopped chewing the potato that was in his mouth and stared at his wife in surprise. At last he hurriedly bolted down the potato and said: "Now that joke don't please me at all. It's wrong to joke about such things." Both were silent.
In the next room sat the mother singing:
"My heart doth bear a burden,
And thou hast placed it there";
And the song seemed to touch them both.
"I've got something to tell you," said Hansei, at last. "It's been my habit, for the last year, to go up to the Chamois after supper, and especially on Saturday evenings. Sometimes I've taken a drop, and sometimes not; and as this is Saturday and as they'll all be there, I think I'd better go up once more, just for your sake."