"Princess!"
"I am so hungry. Have you not seen enough of those stupid old relics?" And the girl yawned, sighed, and rubbed her eyes.
"Oh, pray, Princess!"
Both ladies then walked to the door of exit, where they paused dismayed.
It was raining in torrents, that steady downpour that gives no hope of any speedy cessation.
"This is intolerable!" exclaimed the young girl, in her insinuating and now melancholy voice, and with a slight imperfection of speech which struck kindly, awkward Sydow as something too charming ever to be forgotten. "Insufferable! We cannot put our skirts over our heads, like female pilgrims."
"Pray permit me to call a droschky for you." With these words the young Prussian approached the pair; then when the girl measured him from head to foot with a half-merry, half-haughty stare, he added, with a bow, by way of explanation, "Von Sydow."
The ladies bowed without finding it necessary to mention their names, and the younger said, with her bewitching voice and imperfection of speech, "You will greatly oblige us if you will be so kind as to take the trouble."
And in fact it was a trouble. It is difficult to withstand the insistence of Italian droschky-drivers in fine weather, when one wishes to walk, but to find a droschky in bad weather, when one wishes to drive, is more difficult still.
When he at last succeeded he feared to find that the ladies had left in despair at the delay; but no, there they were still, the companion in the striped waterproof with her face shining with the rain which had drenched it as she stretched her neck to see if he were coming, and her curls dangling limp in damp disorder; the girl more bewitching than ever, her cheeks slightly flushed by the fresh damp breeze, and evidently exhilarated in mind, flattered by her conquest. She had grown gracious, and she smiled her thanks, as she hurried into the carriage, lifting her skirts to avoid wetting them, and thereby displaying a pair of the prettiest little feet imaginable.