A bright idea seemed to occur to her.
"All right, Herr," she exclaimed, "I'll take it, only next Christmas I shall buy you something with it, that will be worth having." And happy at the thought, she scampered away.
The Christmas-tree had burnt out. It stood now dark and neglected in the corner by the stove, only occasionally casting a glimmer from its golden fruit on the table where master and servant sat opposite each other.
Regina had been accorded permission to take her supper with him this evening, and had been too overcome to swallow a mouthful. She was almost stunned with this great and unexpected pleasure.
Now the dishes were cleared away, and only bottles and glasses stood between them. She drank, thoughtlessly, of the old fire-kindling wine in long immoderate draughts. Her face began to glow. The pupils of her brilliant eyes seemed to melt beneath their drooping lids. She rocked to and fro on her chair. A wild abandon had relaxed her in every limb.
"Are you tired, Regina?"
She shook her head impatiently. For once her constraint in his presence had disappeared. There was something even approaching audacity in the brilliancy of her glance as she turned it on him from time to time. She was intoxicated with happiness. He too felt the wine flame up in him; and his eyes were riveted on her figure, which swayed before him with the graceful motions of a Mænad.
All the time the tempest raged outside. It whistled in the chimney and hurled a rattling fusilade against the window shutters. There was a grinding and crunching among the rafters of the roof, which sounded as if the mouldy wood were collapsing.
"I am afraid something will be blown down," he said as he listened.
"Maybe," she answered with a dreamy smile, huddling herself together. And then she began to babble in a fragmentary but quite unrestrained fashion. "Perhaps it isn't good for me, Herr," she said, "that you are so kind to me. All my life I have never got anything but blows and abuse--first from my father, then from him, not to mention other people. But if you spoil me, Herr, I shall get proud--and pride is a great vice, I have heard the Pastor say--I shall begin to think I'm a princess who needn't earn her bread."