The Count came back in half a minute.
"Bring up your chair—not so near—so—and don't be disturbed by my drumming.—Do you know, dear Count, that you are a dangerous man?"
"But, my dear lady!" exclaimed the Count, twirling the ends of his mustache.
"You must be, if Luise thinks so. She has just given me a most charming curtain lecture."
"Great Heavens! What shall I do! Everybody worships you! Why shouldn't I be allowed to do what everybody does?"
"Because you are not everybody, because"—Carla raised her eyes; the Count was always as if intoxicated when he was permitted, unhindered by the lorgnette, to look into those blue eyes, beneath whose languid drooping lids a mysterious world of tenderness and coyness seemed to be hidden.
"Because I came too late?" he whispered passionately.
"One must not come too late, dear Count; that is the worst mistake in war, politics, everywhere. You must bear the consequences of this mistake—voilà tout!"
She played: "Only one year at thy side could I have wished to be, as witness of thy joy."—The Count gazed before him in silence.—"He is taking that seriously," thought Carla; "I must give him a little encouragement again."
"Why shouldn't we be friends?" she asked, extending her left hand while the right intoned: "Come dwell with me! Let me teach thee how sweet is the bliss of purest love!"