Priscilla opened her eyes to stare at her in frankest surprise, for never yet had Annalise dared make a remark unrequested.  Annalise, by beginning to wash them, forced her to shut them again.

Priscilla then opened her mouth to tell her what she thought of her.  Immediately Annalise’s swift sponge stopped it up.

“Your Grand Ducal Highness,” said Annalise, washing Priscilla’s mouth with a thoroughness and an amount of water suggestive of its not having been washed for months, “told me only yesterday that weeping was a terrible—­schreckliche—­waste of time.  Therefore, since your Grand Ducal Highness knows that and yet herself weeps, it is easy to see that there exists a reason for weeping which makes weeping inevitable.”

“Will you—­” began Priscilla, only to be stopped instantly by the ready sponge.

“Your Grand Ducal Highness is unhappy.  ’Tis not to be wondered at.  Trust a faithful servant, one whose life-blood is at your Grand Ducal Highness’s disposal, and tell her if it is not then true that the Herr Geheimrath has decoyed you from your home and your Grossherzoglicher Herr Papa?”

“Will you—­”

Again the pouncing sponge.

“My heart bleeds—­indeed it bleeds—­to think of the Herr Papa’s sufferings, his fears, his anxieties.  It is a picture on which I cannot calmly look.  Day and night—­for at night I lie sleepless on my bed—­I am inquiring of myself what it can be, the spell that the Herr Geheimrath has cast over your Grand Ducal—­”

“Will you—­”

Again the pouncing sponge; but this time Priscilla caught the girl’s hand, and holding it at arm’s length sat up.  “Are you mad?” she asked, looking at Annalise as though she saw her for the first time.

Annalise dropped the sponge and clasped her hands.  “Not mad,” she said, “only very, very devoted.”

“No.  Mad.  Give me a towel.”

Priscilla was so angry that she did not dare say more.  If she had said a part even of what she wanted to say all would have been over between herself and Annalise; so she dried her face in silence, declining to allow it to be touched.  “You can go,” she said, glancing at the door, her face pale with suppressed wrath but also, it must be confessed, very clean; and when she was alone she dropped once again on to the sofa and buried her head in the cushion.  How dared Annalise?  How dared she?  How dared she?  Priscilla asked herself over and over again, wincing, furious.  Why had she not thought of this, known that she would be in the power of any servant they chose to bring?  Surely there was no limit, positively none, to what the girl might do or say?  How was she going to bear her about her, endure the sight and sound of that veiled impertinence?  She buried her head very deep in the cushion, vainly striving to blot out the world and Annalise in its feathers, but even there there was no peace, for suddenly a great noise of doors going and legs striding penetrated through its stuffiness and she heard Fritzing’s voice very loud and near—­all sounds in Creeper Cottage were loud and near—­ordering Annalise to ask her Grand Ducal Highness to descend.