I touched her horse's neck, and said, 'I have not seen it.'

'Yet you understand me. You know me well. How is that?'

The murmur of honest confession came from me: 'I have seen it!'

She laughed. 'I bring you to be German, you see. Could you forsake your
England?'

'Instantly, though not willingly.'

'Not regrettingly?'

'Cheerfully, if I had my work and my—my friend.'

'No; but well I know a man's field of labour is his country. You have your ambition.'

'Yes, now I have.'

She struck a fir-branch with her riding-whip, scattering flakes on my head. 'Would that extinguish it?'