"Nonsense," exclaimed Paula decidedly. "Consider what you are saying. When Orion tempted you to perjure yourself, did he behave as my friend or as my foe, my bitterest and most implacable enemy?"
"Before the judges, to be sure. . ." replied the girl looking down thoughtfully. But she soon looked up again, fixed her eyes on Paula's face with a sparkling, determined glance, and frankly and unhesitatingly exclaimed: "And you?—In spite of it all he is so handsome, so clever, so manly. You can hardly help it—you love him!"
Paula withdrew her arm, which had been round Katharina, and answered candidly.
"Until to-day, at the funeral, I hated and abominated him; but there, by his father's tomb, he struck me as a new man, and I found it easy to forgive him in my heart."
"Then you mean to say that you do not love him?" urged Katharina, clasping her friend's round arm with her slender fingers.
Paula started to feel how icy cold her hand was. The moon was up, the stars rose higher and higher, so, simply saying: "Come away," she rose. "It must be within an hour of midnight," she added. "Your mother will be anxious about you."
"Only an hour of midnight!" repeated the girl in alarm. "Good Heavens,
I shall have a scolding! She is still playing draughts with the Bishop,
no doubt, as she does every evening. Good-bye then for the present.
The shortest way is through the hedge again."
"No," said Paula firmly, "you are no longer a child; you are grown up, and must feel it and show it. You are not to creep through the bushes, but to go home by the gate. Rufinus and I will go with you and explain to your mother. . ."
"No, no!" cried Katharina in terror. "She is as angry with you as she is with them. Only yesterday she forbid. . ."
"Forbid you to come to me?" asked Paula. "Does she believe. . ."