Suddenly I hear the booming of the tower clock.
"Can't I get it a little cheaper?" I ask half-throttled.
"Well, did you ever?" she says, obviously hurt. "There are ten roses in the bunch; they cost a mark a piece at this time. We throw in the riband."
I am disconsolate and am about to leave the shop. But the old saleswoman who knows her customers and has perceived the tale of love lurking under my whispering and my hesitation, feels a human sympathy.
"You might have a few roses taken out," she says. "How much would you care to expend, young man?"
"Eight marks and seventy pfennigs," I am about to answer in my folly.
Fortunately it occurs to me that I must keep out a tip for her maid.
The ladies of the theatre always have maids. And I might leave late.
"Seven marks," I answer therefore.
With quiet dignity the woman extracts four roses from my bunch and I am too humble and intimidated to protest.
But my bunch is still rich and full and I am consoled to think that a wooing prince cannot do better.
Five minutes past seven I stand before her door.
Need I say that my breath gives out, that I dare not knock, that the flowers nearly fall from my nerveless hand? All that is a matter of course to anyone who has ever, in his youth, had dealings with faeries of Thea's stamp.