Not a word was said about that which had kept him from her so long. It was as if the war had called him from her side, and now at last he had returned and all would be well again, and far more beautiful than it could ever have been without his youthful heroism and his honorable scars. He had to listen to many tender complaints and reproaches for not having given her any news about himself in all this time. But the moment he tried to say a word in his own defense, she closed his lips with impassioned kisses. "Be still!" she cried. "It is true you are a great sinner, my darling hero, but I--what wouldn't I forgive you on this day, this glorious day of festival and joy! And, you see, it did not help you any after all. You imagined you were safe from me, and thought you could march in here with the rest without any one's being the wiser, while I sat and sulked in my old-maid's cell on the Lung' Arno. But this is the time of miracles! I cast aside my pride of birth, and all the good training I owe to myself, as if they had been old rags, and went to uncle and said to him: 'If the mountain will not come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain. That wicked Felix would like to be rid of me; but it takes two to do that. Come, uncle, let us go to Munich. I must see my lover ride in through the gate of victory, Schnetz writes that he looks nobly in his uniform, and I can't help it even if the old countess doesn't think it proper for me to run after this faithless man. He ran after me long enough, and we ought to exchange _roles_ for once.' And so here I am, and have been sitting here on the very same spot for three hours, waiting for a certain youthful hero, and scolding terribly at Schnetz, who had promised me that he would entice him into this love-trap just as soon as he possibly could. And now it has actually sprung upon you, and you sha'n't be let out again as long as you live." The lights in the streets outside had long been blazing in full brilliancy, and under the windows a joyous crowd of happy people streamed past toward the centre of the city, where the illumination was said to be the finest. But the two happy lovers had forgotten all else in the bliss, so long deferred, of gazing into one another's eyes and seeing the flame of inextinguishable love and devotion glowing there. She asked after the companions who had been with him through the war, and he after the friends she had left behind in Florence. But neither paid much attention to what the other answered; all they cared for was to hear each other speak, and to assure themselves by the sound of their voices that they were once more united. An hour may have passed in this way, when some one knocked softly. The knock was repeated three times before they heard it, and Irene ran to open the door. Angelica came flying in, the two girls fell on one another's necks, and good Angelica's voice was so stifled by suppressed tears that it was a long time before she could speak.