'No, no. Tell me, what is it?'
Johannes told her all he knew about the Book. 'And I have the key, and I thought that you must have the little golden chest. Is it not so, Dicky-bird?'
But the bird pretended not to hear, and flew about among the young pale-green birch boughs. They were sitting under a sand-hill, on which little birches and broom shrubs grew. A grassy path ran up the slope, and they sat at the edge of it, on the thick, dark, green moss. They could see over the tops of the low shrubs, a green sea of leaves with waves in light and shade.
'I believe,' said Robinetta, after thinking for some time, 'that I can find what you want before you do. But what do you mean about the little key? How did you come by it?'
'Ah!—how did I?—How was that?' muttered Johannes to himself, staring across the green landscape into the distance.
Suddenly, as though they had come into being under the sunny blue sky, a pair of white butterflies met his sight. They flitted and wheeled, and shone in the sunshine with purposeless giddy flutterings; but they came close to him.
'Windekind! Windekind!' The name came back to Johannes, and he spoke it in a whisper.
'What is Windekind?' asked Robinetta. The Redbreast flew chirping up, and the daisies in the grass at their feet seemed all at once to be staring at Johannes in alarm with their round white eyes.
'Did he give you the little key?' the girl went on.
Johannes nodded; still he said nothing, but she wanted to know more about it.