"Whom he may have seen at Halberstadt!" said the Archduchess, determined that the cat should not gobble her.
"Only he has not been there!" said Father Lamormain.
"A prodigy!" said the Archduchess.
"More prodigious still, he recognised your voice, though he did not see your Highness by reason of the darkness!"
"Recognised my voice!" said the Archduchess, now roused to a fine appearance of indignation. "Where was this prowling Lutheran that he could hear my voice and neither see me nor be seen?"
"Upon the wall of the orchard close in the gardens of the palace of Vienna!"
But the Archduchess was quick of wit. "Dear Father Lamormain," she said without a blush, and with an amused irony in her tones, "since when is it reported that I have taken to assignations in the dark in orchard closes?"
"Nay!" said Father Lamormain. "Perchance I used not the right words. It was clumsy of me! The honest Pastor Rad but recognised the voice of his Countess talking to her lover in the orchard close!"
"And the lover?" the Archduchess asked with an accent of merriment. "Did his Lutheran sapience recognise him also?"