"Well, then, I love you!" said Boris, who did his wooing plainly.
Meanwhile the others had wandered to the end of the passage and now stood at the turnpike staircase, the light of Martha Pappenheim's lantern making a dim haze of light about them.
Anna looked at Boris as often as she could.
"You really love me?" she questioned. "No, you cannot; you have known me too brief a time. Besides, this is no time to speak of love, with the enemy at the gates!"
"Tush!" said Boris, with the roughness which Anna had looked for in vain among all the youth of Courtland. "I tell you, girl, it is the time. You and I are no Courtlanders, God be thanked! In a little while I shall ride back to Plassenburg, which is a place where men live. I shall not go alone. You, little Anna, shall come, too!"
"You are not deceiving me?" she murmured, looking up upon occasion. "There is none at Plassenburg whom you love at all?"
"I have never loved any woman but you!" said Boris, settling his conscience by adding mentally, "though I may have thought I did when I told them so."
"Nor I any man!" said Anna, softly meditative, making, however, a similar addition.
Thus Greek met Greek, and both were very happy in the belief that their own was the only mental reservation.