What was the game that I need not try?
As I could not find a satisfactory answer to this question, I asked the old woman on the following day.
"You need not make as if you did not know," she said, with a kind of respect, inspired probably by my innocent manner, which she naturally took for a masterpiece of deception; "I am not going to betray my young lady for a couple of thalers. I have been sorry enough, I can tell you, that I helped to clear up this room for you, and she has complained bitterly enough about it."
"But, good heaven," I said, "I will cheerfully go back to my old room if the young lady wishes it. I never thought it would be so extremely disagreeable to her if I caught a sight of her now and then. I could not have supposed it."
"And that was all you wanted?" asked the old woman.
I did not answer. I was half desperate to think that--heaven knows how involuntarily--I had offended her whom I so deeply loved; and yet I was glad to learn at last what my offence was. Like the young fool I was, I strode up and down the great room, and cried:
"I will quit this room this very day; I will not sleep another night in it; tell your young lady that; and tell her that I would leave the castle this very hour, only that I do not know what to say to Herr von Zehren."
And I threw myself into the old worm-eaten, high-backed chair, at imminent risk of its destruction, with the deepest distress evident in my features.
The tone of my voice, the expression of my countenance, probably joined with my words to convince the old woman of my sincerity.
"Yes, yes," she said, "what could you say to him? He certainly would not let you go, although for my part I do not know what he really wants with you. Do you stay here, and I will speak with my young lady."