Her words were in the nature of a suggestion, almost a question.
Trafford answered them between his teeth.
"That is the sort of impossibility that comes off," he muttered.
"You mean it?" demanded his fair companion, and her eyes were pleading as they had pleaded with Captain von Hügelweiler in the Thiergarten.
Trafford drank deep of their glance, and it intoxicated him.
"When I see these picturesque buildings," he returned, "with their garlands of snow and cornices of icicles, I feel I am in fairyland. And in fairyland, you know, the poor beast is changed into a handsome young man and marries the beautiful Princess." He was not insensible of his boldness, and carried it off with a laugh. "I feel the transmogrifying effects of this fairy kingdom already."
"And you are beginning to feel a handsome young man?" asked the Princess gaily.
"I have felt it this past quarter of an hour, Princess," he answered, twirling at his frozen moustache. "Already wild hopes are stirring in my bosom."
"You are not going to propose, are you?" she asked calmly, but with a most delicious quiver of the lips.
Trafford looked at his fair interrogator steadily a few seconds before replying. If ever encouragement was legible in bright eyes and challenging smile, it was writ clear in the facile features of the Princess von Schattenberg. Again he drank deep of beauty and his brain reeled among the stars.