k that such a
thing as this could happen, and that a splendid handsome gentleman like
him should be almost stabbed to death just because of a poor girl like
me, and he quite innocent, too--"

Irene had made a movement as though to leave the place as quickly as
possible. These last words made her think better of it.

"Innocent?" she said, carelessly, without looking at Zenz. "Do you
know, then, how it all came about?"

"To be sure I do," cried the girl, eagerly; "I was the cause of it all!
I wouldn't have anything to say to him, to Hiesl, I mean, and why
shouldn't I confess that I like the baron! There can't be a handsomer
or better man in the world, and when he smiles upon you, in his kind
way, you seem to feel it away down in your heart. And yet he isn't
proud at all, nor impudent and bad to a poor girl, like other young
gentlemen; it isn't any disgrace for me to like him better than a rough
fellow like Hiesl. Oh! Fraeulein, I don't know how you feel about love,
or whether you have a sweetheart, but I--before I saw the Herr Baron
one man was just the same to me as another, and now it seems as if
there were only this one man under God's heaven; and whatever he says
and wants, that I must do, as if it were the Lord himself who ordered
me. But he--and you may believe this on my honor and as I hope to be
saved--he never thinks of such a thing. He knows well enough how I feel
toward him, but he never gives me a thought, and though I'm not pretty
I can't be so very ugly either. At all events if I wanted to I could
twist Herr Rossel round my little finger. But many thanks! I would
rather love one who doesn't care a bit about me, than be loved by one
that I don't like!"

Meantime she had gone on tying up her bouquet, and now she held it up
with a bright laugh which showed all her white teeth. "Isn't it
beautiful?" she said. "But you won't even look at it, Fraeulein. Don't
you like flowers?"

Irene started out of a deep reverie. Her cheeks burned, and she
struggled vainly to maintain her reserve toward this girl, whose frank
and perfectly unselfish nature she could not help liking, do what she
would.

"And you think it perfectly proper?" she managed at last to say. "It
never occurred to you that you are doing anything out of the way in
openly following into a strange house, where there are other men, some
one who does not care anything about you? Though, to be sure, what does
it matter to me what you do or don't do?"