"A propos, Leo," she went on. "Are you in the humour for a spree?"
"It depends on what the spree is."
"Oh! you cautious old slow-coach. Listen, and I'll tell you; only you mustn't tell. We are getting up a midnight sleigh-drive."
"We! Who?"
"Why, these boys and two or three others. It's to be a sleigh-drive after the fashion of the King of Bavaria, you know--torches and outriders in mediæval costume, and all the rest of it. Unfortunately, there are no mountains to risk breaking our necks over. All the same, it will be a very risqué affair, as I am to be the only lady of the party. So I thought if I found a steady, reliable person--a relation like yourself--to come and act as chaperon, it would be all right."
"I am honoured by the confidence you place in me, my dear Lizzie," he replied, drawing himself erect. "But I am afraid that I am not nearly enough related to you to undertake the rôle you suggest without injury to your reputation. On the other hand, I am sufficiently intimate with Ulrich to call to account those who, by taking part in such a mad excursion, would put you so wantonly in a false position."
Three faces lengthened in dismay at his words. Even Felicitas grew perceptibly paler. Her eyes, which a moment before had flashed a mocking challenge at him, drooped in veiled supplication. He turned his back on the group, and re-entered the hall, trembling with suppressed emotion. There he spent another miserable two hours, resolving every moment to go home, and yet incapable of tearing himself from the magic spell of her environment.
He sat moping in silence behind the broad back of a whist-player, apparently engrossed in watching the game, and only glad that no one disturbed him.
When it was almost three o'clock he heard one of the young officers telling a servant to order round the Uhlenfelde sleigh.
A swift decision made him spring up, take his leave, and rush to the stables to see that his own horse was put in as speedily as possible.