"Very well! And now listen _you_! As I have loved you with all the warmth of my heart, so I hate you now; and as a few minutes ago I would have willingly given my love for you, so I wish now to be avenged on you for this disgrace. And I will be avenged; I will----" Again she broke out into passionate tears; but she checked herself quickly. "You do not deserve it, that I shed so many tears for you. Now crown your conduct and follow me into the house, so that the whole world may see what a fool I have been!" And she hastened away from Oswald, down the wall, across the lawn, into the salon, where they were dancing merrily. Cloten, who had in vain looked for her everywhere, and now stood melancholy, leaning against a door-frame, saw her at once and hurried to meet her. "Why, Miss Emily! Caused me real anguish! Upon my word, was _au désespoir_! Thought, in fact, one of the heavenly ones had eloped with you." "I have been quietly reflecting. Baron Cloten, on what you told me a little while ago," replied Emily. "'Pon my word! Are an angel! and I may hope?" asked Cloten, who of course interpreted the reddened eyelids and the excited manner of the young girl in his own favor. "Go to my aunt!" "Really? 'pon honor? I can't believe it!" exclaimed the young man, and his surprise was by no means fictitious. "Then do not go!" replied Miss Emily, in a tone which would have made anybody else very much afraid about the firmness of the tie that was about to be formed here. "Great God! Emily, angel, do not be angry. I hasten, I fly----" And Baron Cloten went away in most abject confusion to seek out the aunt. Emily remained standing on the same spot, pale, her arms folded, her eyes fixed upon the groups of dancers, without seeing anything more than if she had stared into vacancy. "You are wiser than others," said a voice close by her. It was Baron Felix; he had thrown himself into a chair, and wiped the perspiration from his brow with a delicate handkerchief. "Ridiculous to jump about in this heat; I think it is time to stop. And now Helen has relieved Mr. Timm at the piano. That girl has strange notions. Don't you think so, Miss Emily?" "Perhaps she had no one to dance with." "Impossible." "Well, perhaps not the right one." "_C'est-à-dire?_" "The one she likes to dance with." "I have always been here." "You do not imagine _you_ are the happy one?" "Who else?" "Don't you know what has become of Mr. Stein?" "No, why?" "I only ask for Miss Helen's sake. Do you not see how her big, proud eyes are searching steadily, but unceasingly, all over the salon?" "You are surely not in earnest?" "Why not? Is not Mr. Stein a very handsome man? And has not Miss Helen very strange notions?" "Miss Emily," said Felix, gravely, "will you do me the honor to tell me whether you have any special reasons for such an assertion?" "Of course I have special reasons." "And will you have the kindness to mention them?" "That I cannot."