hardly blame you.
Perhaps you will be better pleased, when I assure you once more that no
sin was ever more bitterly or cruelly punished than mine has been."

"Indeed!" said Katharina with a drawl; then, with a flutter of her fan,
she went on airily: "And yet you look anything rather than crushed;
and have even succeeded in winning 'the other'--Paula, if I am not
mistaken."

"That will do!" said Orion decisively, and he raised the key to
the lock. Katharina, however, placed herself in his way, raised a
threatening finger, and exclaimed:

"So I should think!--Now I am certain. However, you are right with your
insolent 'That will do!' I do not care a rush for your love affairs;
still, there is one thing I should like to know, which concerns myself
alone; how could you see over our garden hedge? Anubis is scarcely a
head shorter than you are...."

"And you made him try?" interrupted Orion, who could not forbear
smiling, perceiving that his honestly meant gravity was thrown away on
Katharina. "Notwithstanding such a praiseworthy experiment, I may beg
you to note for future cases that what is true of him is not true of
every one, and that, besides foot-passengers, a tall man sometimes
mounts a tall horse?"

"It was you, then, who rode by last night?"

"And who could not resist glancing up at your window."

At these words she drew back in surprise, and her eyes lighted up, but
only for an instant; then, clenching the feathers of her fan in both
hands, she sharply asked:

"Is that in mockery?"

"Certainly not," said Orion coolly; "for though you have reason enough
to be angry with me...."

"I, at any rate, have, so far given you none," she petulantly broke
in. "No, I have not. It is I, and I alone, who have been insulted and
ill-used; you must confess that you owe me some amends, and that I have
a right to ask them."

"Do so," replied he. "I am yours to command." She looked him straight in
the face.

"First of all," she began, "have you told any one else that I was..."

"That you were listening? No--not a living soul."

"And will you promise never to betray me?"

"Willingly. Now, what is the 'secondly' to this 'first of all?'"

But there was no immediate answer; the water-wagtail evidently found it
difficult. However, she presently said, with downcast eyes:

"I want.... You will think me a greater fool than I am... nevertheless,
yes, I will ask you, though it will involve me in fresh humiliation.--I
wan