"She never came?" asked Giraldi vehemently.
"Oh yes! I had told her so much about her brother's ball, and----"
"Your dress--and so forth."
"Yes, that also. But it was not needed. I saw in her eyes that she could not hold out any longer, and was delighted that I had given her such a suitable opportunity. She came, too, half an hour before the time, and found everything very charming, just as it was the first time she was there, in November, and helped me to dress, and--well, one knows what it is when a girl, who is really in love, is waiting for her lover. A ring was heard. 'Who can that be?' said I. 'Perhaps it is Herr von Werben,' said Johanna, who naturally knows all about it. 'What brings him here to-day? Perhaps a bouquet; he is always so attentive,' said Johanna. She turned white and red in one moment, and trembled from head to foot, then fell upon my neck and sobbed, 'No, no, I have sworn it;' and before I could turn round myself, she was out of the room, without hat or cloak, down the stairs, and into the carriage, which was waiting at the door--br-r-r!--and she was gone. Next time she will not run away, I am certain of that."
"Next time," cried Giraldi, with scarcely restrained fury, "as if I could wait a hundred years. I had so set my hopes on it. Made so much of it to him. How did he take it?"
"He was frantic. I had to spend half an hour in consoling him. There never was anything like it. I really think he will do himself a mischief, if he doesn't get the girl. It is no joke, I can tell you, to deal with them both. If I were not so fond of Werben, and so sorry for poor Ferdinanda, I would not do it for all the money in the world."
"Did not he want to come here with you?"
"He is lying full length on my sofa and would listen to nothing. But I think he will come still. An hour or so of that sort of thing gets tiresome, here it is delightful. There is the quadrille beginning, and here comes my partner; may I----"
"Yes, go; and if you see him, tell him that I expect him to-morrow morning between nine and ten. He will know why."
"I have been looking for you everywhere, Fräulein Bertalda."