d better give as little offence as
possible, and keep their eyes as wide as they can, if they want to be of
service to Mistress Margarita.'

Dietrich turned off with a grunt.

'Now!' said Margarita.

She was tapping her foot. Dietrich grew unfaithful to the Club, and
looked at her longer than his mission warranted. She was bright as the
sunset gardens of the Golden Apples. The braids of her yellow hair were
bound in wreaths, and on one side of her head a saffron crocus was
stuck with the bell downward. Sweetness, song, and wit hung like dews of
morning on her grape-stained lips. She wore a scarlet corset with bands
of black velvet across her shoulders. The girlish gown was thin blue
stuff, and fell short over her firm-set feet, neatly cased in white
leather with buckles. There was witness in her limbs and the way
she carried her neck of an amiable, but capable, dragon, ready, when
aroused, to bristle up and guard the Golden Apples against all save the
rightful claimant. Yet her nether lip and little white chin-ball had a
dreamy droop; her frank blue eyes went straight into the speaker: the
dragon slept. It was a dangerous charm. 'For,' says the minnesinger,
'what ornament more enchants us on a young beauty than the soft slumber
of a strength never yet called forth, and that herself knows not of!
It sings double things to the heart of knighthood; lures, and warns us;
woos, and threatens. 'Tis as nature, shining peace, yet the mother of
storm.'

'There is no man,' rapturously exclaims Heinrich von der Jungferweide,
'can resist the desire to win a sweet treasure before which lies a
dragon sleeping. The very danger prattles promise.'

But the dragon must really sleep, as with Margarita.

'A sham dragon, shamming sleep, has destroyed more virgins than all the
heathen emperors,' says old Hans Aepfelmann of Duesseldorf.

Margarita's foot was tapping quicker.

'Speak, Dietrich!' she said.

Dietrich declared to the Club that at this point he muttered, 'We love
you.' Margarita was glad to believe he had not spoken of himself. He
then informed her of the fears entertained by the Club, sworn to watch
over and protect her, regarding Farina's arts.

'And what fear you?' said Margarita.

'We fear, sweet mistress, he may be in league with Sathanas,' replied
Dietrich.

'Truly, then,' said Margarita, 'of all the youths in Cologne he is the
least like his confederate.'

Dietrich gulped and winked, like a patient recoverin