The furnace made the chamber intolerably hot, and both sighed with relief at the comparative coolness of the summer breeze on their flushed faces.
Leipsic—roofs, gables, towers, spires—spread before them, pleasantly glimmering in the gold dust of the heat and softly outlined against the rich blue of the August sky.
There was an air of festival, of languor, of midsummer joyousness abroad, the little figures below in the street all looked as if they were making holiday; it seemed as if no one in the city was working, troubling, or grieving.
The two youths at the window sighed with contentment, rested the elbows of their stained sleeves on the warm sill, and forgot the furnace, the chemicals, the minerals, and all the materials of the vases, pots, and bottles in the chambers behind them.
"If I were a knight," said Hans, "I would offer myself as a champion to the Lady Anne to challenge this Romanist and rescue her from him. What would she be doing now, Walter—weeping perhaps?"
"Have you ever seen her?" asked the Burgundian.
"Never; she is kept close in the castle, poor soul."
"Well, it is a cruel thing," agreed Walter, "to exile a young girl from her home and her faith for some whim of policy no one understands."
"Nay, the reason is simple," replied Hans. "If the Lady Anne were to marry a German Prince who might put forward some claims, what of the Elector's position? whereas wedded to a great foreign noble she will give her uncle no trouble at all, at least so said Graf von Gebers to the master the other day, and he added he would not marry his daughter to a Papist to save his head, but then, as I said, the Elector is afraid——If the Lady Anne had been a man she would have had Saxony."
"But these great ones," remarked Walter, "they marry regardless of their faith."