"For Heaven's sake, what did it mean, Herr Wilberg?" asked Mélanie anxiously. "What did you say to that dreadful creature Hartmann, that made him start like that? How rash of you to provoke him!"
The young man smiled, though his lips were still colourless. It was the first time in his life he had ever been accused of rashness, and he was conscious that the reproach was merited. Now only did he clearly see the full measure of the risk he had run.
"Offended pride!" he gasped. "The duty of protecting you, Fräulein! You see he dared not attack us after all."
"No, we got away in time," returned Mélanie naïvely, "and it was a good thing we did, for our lives would have been in danger if we had stayed."
"It was only on your account I ran," said Wilberg, feeling a little hurt. "I should have held my ground if I had been alone, even at the risk of my life."
"That would have been very sad though," remarked the girl. "You who write such beautiful poetry!"
Wilberg blushed with agreeable surprise.
"Do you know my poems? I did not think in your house ... Your father has rather a prejudice against my lyrical tendency."
"Papa was talking to the Director about it a little while ago," said Mélanie, and then suddenly came to a full stop. She could not tell the poet that her father had read aloud to his colleagues those verses, which to her sixteen-year-old imagination had seemed so touching, adding many a biting jest and malicious comment as he read, and finally throwing down the paper with the words:
"And the fellow can spend his time now on such rubbish as that!"