Gretchen wrenched free her arm. She was angry.
"How dare you touch me like that?"
Something in her glance, which was singularly arrogant, cooled even the warm-blooded Hermann.
"But you live in Dreiberg and ought to know."
"You could have told me without bruising my arm," defiantly.
"I am sorry if I hurt you, but you ought to have known better. By which sentry did you pass?" for there was that about her beauty which made him suspicious regarding the sentry's imperviousness to it.
"Hermann!"
Gretchen and the head gardener whirled. Through a hedge which divided the formal gardens from the tennis and archery grounds came a young woman in riding-habit. She carried a book in one hand and a riding-whip in the other.
"What is the trouble, Hermann?" she inquired. "Your voice was something high."
"Your Highness, this young woman here had the impudence to walk into the gardens and stroll about as nice as you please," indignantly.