She held it out. “Yes; quite healed. Look. Already scarcely a mark to be seen.”
He took it, and by an impulse, natural enough, raised and pressed it to his lips.
“All’s well that ends well,” he murmured. “Ah, I hate myself for having hurt you, Fräulein.”
As she withdrew her hand their eyes met. It gave him a thrill of delight to see there was no anger or offence in hers, only a touch of restraining sadness. She gave a little sigh as she replied, hardly above a whisper: “If no one might ever hurt me more than that!”
To his chivalrous nature her words were as a call to arms, for there was manifestly something behind them. “Who would dare to harm you, Fräulein?”
With an effort, it seemed, she recovered her gaiety. “Who, indeed,” she laughed, “would be so unmanly? I only meant to tell you how lightly I regard that little wound.” But she had meant more than that, he was sure.
“All the same, if the unchivalrous man should ever cross your path,” he said with a touch of youthful romance in his tone, “I only hope it may be my privilege to be there to defend you.”
She laughed again. “Perhaps you may be. Who knows?”
“My friend and I were at Rozsnyo yesterday,” he observed, following the train of thought suggested to his mind by her words.
She turned quickly in surprise. “You went to Rozsnyo?” He nodded. “At the Count’s invitation?”