nctly, looking at her with
slightly lifted eyebrows.

Annalise curtseyed and disappeared.

"How fearfully polite German maids are," remarked Tussie.

"In what way?" asked Priscilla.

"Those curtseys. They're magnificent."

"Don't English maids curtsey?"

"None that I've ever seen. Perhaps they do to royalties."

"Oh?" said Priscilla with a little jump. She was still so much
unnerved by the unexpected meeting with her father on the wall of
Creeper Cottage that she could not prevent the little jump.

"What would German maids do, I wonder, in dealing with royalties,"
said Tussie, "if they curtsey so beautifully to ordinary mistresses?
They'd have to go down on their knees to a princess, wouldn't they?"

"How should I know?" said Priscilla, irritably, alarmed to feel she
was turning red; and with great determination she began to talk
literature.

Fritzing was lying in wait for Annalise, and caught her as she came
into the bathroom.

"Fraeulein," said the miserable man trying to screw his face into
persuasiveness, "you cannot let the Princess go without tea."

"Yes I can," said Annalise.

He thrust his hands into his pockets to keep them off her shoulders.

"Make it this once, Fraeulein, and I will hire a woman of the village
to make it in future. And see, you must not leave the Princess's
service, a service of such great honour to yourself, because I chanced
to be perhaps a little--hasty. I will give you two hundred marks to
console you for the slight though undoubted difference in the mode of
living, and I will, as I said, hire a woman to come each day and cook.
Will it not be well so?"

"No," said Annalise.

"No?"

Annalise put her hands on her hips, and swaying lightly from side to
side began to sing softly. Fritzing gazed at this fresh development in
her manners in silent astonishment. "_Jedermann macht mir die Cour,
c'est l'amour, c'est l'amour_," sang Annalise, her head one side, her
eyes on the ceiling.

"_Liebes Kind_, are your promises of no value? Did you not promise to
keep your mouth shut, and not betray the Princess's confidence? Did
she not seek you out from all the others for the honour of keeping her
secrets? And you will, after one week, divulge them to a stranger? You
will leave her service? You will return to Kunitz? Is it well so?"

"_C'est l'amour, c'est l'amour_," sang Annalise, swaying.

"Is it well so, Fraeulein?" repeated Fritzing, strangling a furious
desire to slap her.