"We shall see about that. Now, in the first instance, bring me the man, and leave me alone with him. One more condition: you are never to ask me what means I have employed. Will you promise?" "Anything you wish, my kind, good friend!" She would have pressed the little ringed hands, (which she still held clasped) to her lips, but the Princess prevented it by a swift movement, saying as she did so-- "For goodness sake, do not be demonstrative! People are not to see what intimate friends we have become!" Hildegard had risen to fetch Bertram. Alexandra was again examining, with the help of her double eyeglass, the painted ceiling above; but her thoughts were not with Apollo and the nymphs. "So now we are going to see Mr. Right! To be sure, the other one was scarcely worth the trouble. But this one it will not be so easy to subdue. Poor Kurt--I could take such sweet revenge here! But no, no! I have vowed to myself, by the love wherewith I loved you, wherewith I love you still--as a brother--that I would bring you back your loved one though I should have to fetch her out of Inferno. I will keep my vow. I will be able to look with a clear conscience into your beautiful eyes to-morrow.... Ah, Mr. Bertram! Now I call this very nice of you. I was already beginning to feel offended. I am not accustomed to be neglected by clever people. You must try to atone for it now. Pray, sit down!" XV. Bertram had no difficulty in replying merrily to the merry questions of the fair stranger. His head was full of merry thoughts, there was nothing but rapture in his heart. All the world seemed to him to be filled with the fragrance of that rose Erna had given him to-day, that rose which he had since worn near his heart, and from which the hostile looks of Hildegard and the others fell off harmless, as from a potent talisman. Human envy notwithstanding, things awarded him by the grace of the gods were coming to him, nay, had come. If he had still required any confirmation, what confirmation more delightful could he have had than the exuberant mirth to which the beloved child's melancholy gravity had suddenly turned? Like fairy music her rippling laugh seemed to him, coming from the adjoining room, where, surrounded by her cousins, she was as indefatigable in admiring Herr von Busche's feats, as that gentleman himself was in performing them. And he was willing to bear in patience that she was taken up by her friends all the evening, even as he was himself by the rest of the company, and that thus he had not found one single moment when he might have approached her, might have told her what she knew already, what no longer required to be said, what could be said only by a kiss on those pure, sweet lips.