“That I love you, Beatrix.”
The girl caught her breath, and seemed about to fly, but gathering courage, remained, and said speaking hurriedly and in some confusion: “As I did not suspect it myself I see not how my Lady should have made any such surmise, but indeed it may be so, for she chided me bitterly for remaining so long with you, and made me weep with her keen censure; yet am I here now against her express wish and command, but that is because of my strong sympathy for you and my belief that the Countess has wrongfully treated you.”
“I care nothing for the opinion of that harridan, except that it may bring harsh usage to you; but Beatrix, I have told you bluntly of my love for you, answer me as honestly.”
“My Lord, you spoke just now of a woodlander—”
“Ah, there is one then. Indeed, I feared as much, for there can be none on all the Rhine as beautiful or as good as you.”
“There are many woodlanders, my Lord, and many women more beautiful than I. What I was about to say was that I would rather be the wife of the poorest forester, and lived in the roughest hut on the hillside, than dwell otherwise in the grandest castle on the Rhine.”
“Surely, surely. But you shall dwell in my castle of Schonburg as my most honoured wife, if you but will it so.”
“Then, my Lord, I must bid you beware of what you propose. Your wife must be chosen from the highest in the land, and not from the lowliest. It is not fitting that you should endeavour to raise a serving-maid to the position of Countess von Schonburg. You would lose caste among your equals, and bring unhappiness upon us both.”
Count Herbert grasped his sword and lifting it, cried angrily: “By the Cross I serve, the man who refuses to greet my wife as he would greet the Empress, shall feel the weight of this blade.”
“You cannot kill a whisper with a sword, my Lord.”