‘I wish you,’ he returned, ‘this very night to make the farmer of our talk.’
‘Heaven knows your meaning!’ she exclaimed. ‘I know not, neither care; there are no bounds to my desire to please you. Call him made.’
‘I will put it in another way,’ returned Otto. ‘Did you ever steal?’
‘Often!’ cried the Countess. ‘I have broken all the ten commandments; and if there were more to-morrow, I should not sleep till I had broken these.’
‘This is a case of burglary: to say the truth, I thought it would amuse you,’ said the Prince.
‘I have no practical experience,’ she replied, ‘but O! the good-will! I have broken a work-box in my time, and several hearts, my own included. Never a house! But it cannot be difficult; sins are so unromantically easy! What are we to break?’
‘Madam, we are to break the treasury,’ said Otto and he sketched to her briefly, wittily, with here and there a touch of pathos, the story of his visit to the farm, of his promise to buy it, and of the refusal with which his demand for money had been met that morning at the council; concluding with a few practical words as to the treasury windows, and the helps and hindrances of the proposed exploit.
‘They refused you the money,’ she said when he had done. ‘And you accepted the refusal? Well!’
‘They gave their reasons,’ replied Otto, colouring. ‘They were not such as I could combat; and I am driven to dilapidate the funds of my own country by a theft. It is not dignified; but it is fun.’
‘Fun,’ she said; ‘yes.’ And then she remained silently plunged in thought for an appreciable time. ‘How much do you require?’ she asked at length.