The second automaton, a little slower of tongue than his companion, hesitated a moment.
"Speak up," said his comrade, in an undergrowl; "say 'Katrin.'"
"Katrin!" thundered Captain Boris, with bluff apparent honesty.
"It is well," said the Duchess Joan; "I think no less of a sturdy soldier for being somewhat shamefaced as to the name of his sweetheart. Here is a ring apiece which will not shame your maidens in far Plassenburg, as you walk with them under the lime-trees, or buy ribbons for them in the booths that cluster about the Minster walls."
The donor looked at the rings again. She espied the letters of a posy upon them.
"Ha!" she cried, "Captain Boris, what said you was the name of your betrothed?"
"Good Lord!" muttered Boris lowly to himself, "did I not tell the woman even now?—Gretchen!"
"Hut, you fool!" Jorian's undergrowl came to his ear, "Katrin—not Gretchen; Gretchen is mine."
"I mean Katrin, my Lady Duchess," said Boris, putting a bold face on the mistake.
The young mistress of the castle smiled. "Thou art a strange lover," she said, "thus to forget the name of thy mistress. But here is a ring with a K writ large upon it, which will serve for thy Katherina. And here, Captain Jorian, is one with a G scrolled in Gothic, which thou wilt doubtless place with pride upon the finger of Mistress Gretchen among the rose gardens of Plassenburg."