"Yes," she responded, with tremulous agitation, "with that Volkslied. Who shall say he does not know all hearts?"
"But it is not a Burschen song,[16] nor like one; it is like nothing else."
"No, thank God! a song for the women as well as the men. You never heard such tones, nor I. Well it was that we could put words to them, everybody there."
"And yet it was a song without words," said a voice so gentle that it stole upon my imagination like a sigh.
"Oh, sir, is it you?"
I started, for he was so near to us I was afraid he might have been vexed by hearing. But she was unchanged, unruffled as a flower of the conservatory by the wind without. She looked at him full, and he smiled into her very eyes.
"I only heard your very last words. Do not be afraid, for I knew you were talking secrets, and that is a play I never stop. But, Carlomein, when you have played your play, I must carry you to your master, whom I might call ours, and beg his pardon for all my iniquities."
"Oh, sir! as if you needed," I said; but the young lady answered,—
"I shall retreat, then, sir,—and indeed this is not my place."
She courtesied lowly as to a monarch, but without a shadow of timidity, or so much as the flutter of one rose-leaf, and passed out among the flowers, he looking after her strangely, wistfully.