Just at this moment the music struck up again, playing a cheerful but not very lively waltz, apparently with the purpose of inviting the more elderly guests to join the dance. "Zenz," said Felix, looking her straight in the face, "I don't care anything about the Fraeuleins inside there; and, besides, I don't feel in a mood for love-making. As soon as the storm is over, I am going off without taking leave. If any one asks after me, you need only say that I wanted to be in Starnberg in time to catch the last train. But first I want to know whether I can't do you a favor of any kind, or get something for you in the city, or whether you have any wish that a good friend could fulfill for you? Speak out, Zenz! I am so unhappy myself that I would like, at least, to give a little bit of happiness to some one else." She looked searchingly in his face, as if to see whether he was in earnest. She could not understand why he should not be happy. "Do you know," said she, at last, "if what you said was not meant as a joke, I have a wish, and there is nothing so very terrible about it either--I would like to dance with you, just once." "To dance with me?" "Of course I know well enough what is proper, and that a waiter-girl shouldn't mix among the wedding-guests unless it happens to be a peasant's wedding. But to be always hearing this beautiful music, that makes you tingle down to the tips of your toes, and yet never to be allowed to swing round with the rest, is very hard. I only mean that it is almost the same out here in the entry as in the hall--you can hear every note and the floor is smooth and clean. Will you?" He still hesitated. He certainly felt in no mood for dancing. But when she suddenly put out her hand with a quick movement to seize her mugs, as if she interpreted his hesitation to mean that, after all, he felt himself too good to be her partner, he could not find it in his heart to let her go away from him a second time feeling mortified and insulted. "You are right, child," he said. "Let us dance. A man needn't be particularly merry to have dancing feet. Come! But you must show me how they do it here in the country." He put his arm round her slight and yielding figure, and she clung to it with evident pleasure. "It goes splendidly," she whispered, after the first round. "I feel as if I were being lifted up into heaven. Do you remember how you put me on your horse, that time? Good Heavens! how long ago that seems, and yet it's only a few weeks!"