CHAPTER XXXV.
THE SCENE IN THE LAKE-PALACE LIBRARY
I was humming the burden of Göthe's Zigeunerlied, a favourite one with me whenever I had too much to think of, or nothing. A low rush of sound from the hall-doorway swung me on my heel, and I saw her standing with a silver lamp raised in her right hand to the level of her head, as if she expected to meet obscurity. A thin blue Indian scarf muffled her throat and shoulders. Her hair was loosely knotted. The lamp's full glow illumined and shadowed her. She was like a statue of Twilight.
I went up to her quickly, and closed the door, saying, 'You have come'; my voice was not much above a breath.
She looked distrustfully down the length of the room; 'You were speaking to some one?'
'No.'
'You were speaking.'
'To myself, then, I suppose.'
I remembered and repeated the gipsy burden.
She smiled faintly and said it was the hour for Anna and Ursel and Kith and Liese to be out.
Her hands were gloved, a small matter to tell of.