CHAPTER XIX
"Yes, it is I," said Kaya.
She put up both hands, lifting the helmet from her head, and the red-blonde hair fell back from her short, gold curls. The spear dropped with a clang to the stage and lay extended between them, glittering.
"My voice was there," she said softly, "in my throat, leaping and bounding, and the gate was unbarred." She seemed half afraid, and drew back in the shadow.
Ritter still sat on the edge of the couch, where Brünnhilde had lain, and where Siegfried had kissed her. His face had a dazed look, and he passed his hand over his eyes several times, as if the dusk were too dim for his sight.
"I thought you were the Schultz gone mad!" he murmured. "Gott! What an actress you are!"
A laugh came to him out of the darkness.
"You are no bird," said Ritter, "You are a Walküre born. Take the helmet again and the spear. As you stood in the shadow, gazing downward, you were like a young warrior watching his shield." He sprang to his feet and came toward her, placing the spear in her hand, the helmet again on her head.
"Sing," he said, "Let me hear it again. Your voice is a marvel! The timbre is silver and the tones are of bronze. Let me look at your throat! Gott—but the roof of your mouth is arched like a dome and the passage is as the nave of a cathedral, wide and deep!"