"You're a noble-hearted man," she said, and looked at me sidewise, a bit coquettishly. "Everything you think comes out as straight as if shot from a pistol." "But I know how to keep quiet, too," I said. "Oh, I feel that," she answered hastily. "I could confide everything to you, everything." It seemed to me that she pressed my arm very gently. "What does she want of you?" I asked myself, and I felt my heart beating in my throat. At last we reached the arbour, an arbour of Virginia creeper, with those broad, pointed leaves which keep the sun out entirely. It's always night in arbours of Virginia creeper, you know. She let go my arm, kneeled on the ground, and crept through a little hole on all fours. The entrance was completely overgrown, and that was the only way to get inside. And I, Baron von Hanckel of Ilgenstein, I, a paragon of dignity, I got down on all fours, and crawled through a hole no larger than an oven door. Yes, gentlemen, that is what the women do with us. Inside in the cool twilight she stretched herself out on a bench in a half reclining position, and wiped her bared throat with her handkerchief. Beautiful! I tell you, she looked perfectly beautiful. When I got up and stood in front of her breathless, panting like a bear--at forty-eight years of age, gentlemen, you don't go dancing on all fours with impunity--she burst out laughing--a short, sharp, nervous laugh. "Just laugh at me," I said. "If you only knew how little I felt like laughing," she said, with a bitter expression about her mouth. Then there was silence. She stared into space with her eyebrows lifted high. Her bosom rose and fell. "What are you thinking of?" I asked. She shrugged her shoulders. "Thinking--what's the good of thinking? I'm tired. I want to sleep." "Then go to sleep." "But you must go to sleep, too," she said. "Very well, I'll go to sleep, too." And I also half stretched myself out on the bench opposite her. "But you must shut your eyes," she commanded again. I obediently shut my eyes. I saw suns and light--green wheels and sheaves of fire the whole time--saw them the whole time. That comes from your blood being stirred up. And every now and then I'd say to myself: "Hanckel, you're making a fool of yourself." It was so quiet I could hear the little bugs crawling about on the leaves. "You must see what she's doing," I said to myself, hoping to be able to admire her in her sleeping glory to my heart's content. But when I opened my eyes the least little bit to steal a look, I saw--and, gentlemen, a shiver of fright went through me to the very tips of my toes--I saw her eyes fixed on me in a wide, wild stare, in a sort of spying frenzy, I may say. "But, Iolanthe, dear child," I said, "why are you looking at me that way? What have I done to you?"