as I turned to leave her,
she stood holding the curtain aside for me to pass, and, as it had been
by accident, in dropping it her fingers rested a moment against my
cheek. Then the heavy curtain of blue fell into its place, and I found
myself following the eminently respectable domestic of Master Gerard
down the stairs.

At the outer door, but before he opened it, the man put a sealed packet
in my hand.

"From Doctor Gerard von Sturm," he said, bowing respectfully, yet with a
certain sense of being a party in a favor conferred.

I thrust the letter into my inner pocket and went out into the street.
The sun was still shining, yet somehow I felt that it must be another
day, another world. The houses seemed hard and dry, the details of the
architecture insufferably mean and insultingly familiar. I longed with
all my heart to get away from Thorn into the new world which had opened
to me--a world of perfumes and flowers and flower-like scents and
Oriental marvels, of low voices, too, and the touching of soft hands
upon cheeks.

In all the world of young men there was no greener or more simple Simon
than I, Hugo Gottfried, as, playing a tune on the pipe of my own conceit,
I marched up the High Street of Thorn to the entrance gate of the
Wolfsberg.

The Little Playmate was standing at the door as I approached, sweet as a
June rose. When she saw me she went into the sitting-room to show that
she had not yet forgiven me. Though I think by this time, as was often
the way with Helene, she had forgotten almost what was the original
matter of my offending.

But I pretended to be careless and heart-free. And so--God forgive
me!--I went whistling up the steps of the Red Tower to my room without
so much as looking within the chamber where my Little Playmate had
withdrawn herself.

Which thing I suffered grievously for or all was done. And an excellent
dispensation of Providence it had been if I had lost my right hand, all
for making that little heart sore, or so much as one tear drop from those
deep gray eyes.

CHAPTER XIII

CHRISTIAN'S ELSA

It was about this time, and after we had made our quarrel up, that Helene
began to call me "Great Brother." After all, there is manifest virtue in
a name, and the Little Playmate seemed to find great comfort in thus
addressing me.

And after that I had called her "Little Sister" once or twice she was
greatly assured and treated me quite differently, having ascertained that