The sharp refusal which this proposition received amused the baron instead of offending him, and passing into a more conversational tone, he proposed to her to leave this abode of ennui, where even the poor satyrs on the hangings were holding their big hands over their mouths to hide their yawns, and go with him to the dancing floor. Barbara laid her hand on his arm and followed him to the pleasure ground under the lindens, where the pretty daughters of the Ratisbon noble families had just commenced a dance with the gentlemen belonging to their circle. Barbara had gone to school, exchanged kisses, and was a relative or friend of most of these young girls in light gala dresses, adorned with coloured flowers, whose names Malfalconnet asked, yet, after an interval of these few weeks, she met them like a stranger. The love which united her to the Emperor had raised her far above them. Accustomed to give herself up entirely to the gifts which the present offered, she had turned her back on Ratisbon and its inhabitants, with whom, during this period of happiness she could easily dispense, as if they were a forgotten world. There was no one in her native city whom she seriously missed or to whom she was strongly drawn. That she, too, offered these people little, and was of small importance, self-love had never permitted her to realize, and therefore she felt an emotion of painful surprise when she perceived the deep gulf which separated her from her fellow-citizens of both sexes. Now her old friends and acquaintances showed her plainly enough how little they cared for her withdrawal. Pretty Elspet Zohrer, with whom she had contended for the recruiting officer, Pyramus Kogel, was standing opposite to her, by her partner's side, in the same row with charming little Mietz Schiltl, Anne Mirl Woller, her cousin, Marg Thun, and the others. The Zauner, which they were dancing with a solemn dignity that aroused the baron's mirth, afforded them an opportunity to look around them, and they eagerly availed themselves of it; nay, they almost all glanced at Barbara, and then, with evident intention, away from her, after Elspet Zohrer, with a contemptuous elevation of her dainty little snub nose, had ignored her schoolmate's greeting. Barbara drew herself up, and the air of unapproachable dignity which she assumed well suited the aristocratic gentleman at her side, whom every one knew as the most brilliant, witty, and extravagant noble at the Emperor's court. At the same time she addressed the baron, whom she had hitherto kept at a distance, with unconstrained familiarity, and as the eyes of the mothers also rested upon her, remarks which might have driven the blood to her cheeks were made upon the intimate terms existing between the "Emperor's sweetheart" and the profligate and spendthrift Malfalconnet. True, Barbara could not understand what they were saying, but it was easy enough to perceive in what way they were talking about her.