“To your spinning-wheel! Whoever clings to him so long as he wears the Spanish dress, means evil to him as well as to me.”
“But hear him! You must hear him, father!” cried Ruth.
The door closed, heavy steps approached the door of the house; it opened, and again Adam confronted his son.
“What do you want?” he asked harshly.
“To speak to you, to tell you that you did wrong to insult me unheard.”
“Are you still the Eletto? Answer!”
“I am!”
“And intend to remain so?”
“Que como—puede ser—” faltered Ulrich, who confused by the question, had strayed into the language in which he had been long accustomed to think. But scarcely had the smith distinguished the foreign words, when fresh anger seized him.
“Then go to perdition with your Spaniards!” was the furious answer.