"It is such a hard blow to my vanity that you r-ran. See, I tr-ry to comfort myself in this question: Perhaps you did not know it was I whose horse you heard?"
"Of course I knew it was you."
"Oh, Sydney, dear Sydney, did your heart tell you that your lover was on the r-road?"
The girl blushed hotly at this bold speech, but she declined to be sentimental.
"Not at all," she said. "There was other evidence. Who else could sing like you, 'Oh, I wees' I was in Deexie'?"
Her mimicry of his pronunciation was so good, and at the same time so absurd, that they both laughed joyously.
They walked slowly towards the gate, behind which Gray Eagle was waiting with what patience he might.
"Tell me, my pr-rincess, why have you not allowed me to see you since that evening, though I have come every day?"
"That terrible evening! Oh, Friedrich——"
"Say that again!"