"Do so," replied he. "I am yours to command." She looked him straight in the face.
"First of all," she began, "have you told any one else that I was. . ."
"That you were listening? No—not a living soul."
"And will you promise never to betray me?"
"Willingly. Now, what is the 'secondly' to this 'first of all?'"
But there was no immediate answer; the water-wagtail evidently found it difficult. However, she presently said, with downcast eyes:
"I want. . . . You will think me a greater fool than I am . . . nevertheless, yes, I will ask you, though it will involve me in fresh humiliation.—I want to know the truth; and if there is anything you hold sacred, before I ask, you must swear by what is holiest to answer me, not as if I were a silly girl, but as if I were the Supreme judge at the last day.—Do you hear?"
"This is very solemn," said Orion. "And you must allow me to observe that there are some questions which do not concern us alone, and if yours is such. . . ."
"No, no," replied Katharina, "what I mean concerns you and me alone."
"Then I see no reason for refusing," he said. "Still, I may ask you a favor in return. It seems to me no less important than it did to you, to know what a great man like the patriarch finds to talk about, and since I place myself at your commands. . . ."