"You mean, when you are making your verses," interrupted Ulric, drily. "So that is what the tea is for? Well, they are just what I should expect from it."
It was fortunate that the poet was just then busy trying to fix in his memory a rhyme which had come into his mind. He hardly heard the insulting remark, but turned to his companion next minute in quite a friendly way.
"I have something to beg of you, Hartmann, to desire, to demand!" said he, reaching his climax in well-graduated tones. "Something which you must agree to, no matter at what cost. You are in possession of an article which is perfectly worthless to you, but which would make me the happiest mortal under the sun. You must give it up to me."
"What must I give up to you?" carelessly asked Ulric, who, as usual, when Wilberg was talking, had only half listened.
Herr Wilberg blushed, sighed, looked down, sighed a second time, and, after these preliminaries, thought fit to proceed to speech.
"You remember the day when you came to her ladyship's rescue! Ah, Hartmann, what a pity it is you should have no adequate conception of the poetry involved in such a situation! If I had been in your place! But we will leave that. She offered you her handkerchief when she saw you were bleeding. You kept it in your hand, while the others were looking to your wound. Good Heavens! you cannot possibly have forgotten such a circumstance as that!"
"Well, what do you want with the handkerchief?" asked Ulric, suddenly attentive.
"I wish to possess it," murmured Wilberg, casting down his eyes with a melancholy air. "Ask from me what you will, but let me have that precious souvenir of the woman I adore!"
"You!" cried Ulric, in a tone which made the other spring back and look anxiously round to see that no one was by.
"Don't shout like that, Hartmann! You need not be so horrified because I say I adore the future proprietor's wife. It is something far different from what you are accustomed to consider as love. It is--but you do not know what a platonic affection means.