“Wretch that I am!  Damnable wretch!  Krumerweg, Krumerweg!  Crooked way, indeed!” He flung down his arm passionately.  “There will be a God up yonder,” looking at the stars.  “He will see into my heart and know that it is not bad, only young.  Oh, Gretchen!”

“Gretchen?” The carter stepped into a shadow and waited.

* * * * *

Carmichael did not enjoy the opera that night.  He had missed the first acts, and the last was gruesome, and the royal box was vacant.  Outside he sat down on one of the benches near the fountains in the Platz.  His prolific imagination took the boundaries.  Ah!  That morning’s ride, down the southern path of the mountains, the black squirrels in the branches, the red fox in the bushes, the clear spring, and the drink out of the tin cup which hung there for the thirsty!  How prettily she had wrapped a leaf over the rusted edge of the cup!  The leaf lay in his pocket.  He had kissed a dozen times the spot where her lips had pressed it.  Blind fool!  Deeper and deeper; he knew that he never could go back to that safe ledge of the heart-free.  Time could not change his heart, not if given the thousand years of the wandering Jew.

Bah!  He would walk round the fountain and cool his crazy pulse.  He was Irish, Irish to the core.  Would any one, save an Irishman, give way, day after day, to those insane maunderings?  His mood was savage; he was at odds with the world, and most of all, with himself.  If only some one would come along and shoulder him rudely!  He laughed ruefully.  He was in a fine mood to make an ass of himself.

He left the bench and strolled round the fountain, his cane behind his back, his chin in his collar.  He had made the circle several times, then he blundered into some one.  The fighting mood was gone now, the walk having calmed him.  He murmured a short apology for his clumsiness and started on, without even looking at the animated obstacle.

“Just a moment, my studious friend.”

“Wallenstein?  I didn’t see you.”  Carmichael halted.

“That was evident,” replied the colonel jestingly.  “Heavens!  Have you really cares of state, that you walk five times round this fountain, bump into me, and start to go on without so much as a how-do-you-do?”

“I’m absent-minded,” Carmichael admitted.

“Not always, my friend.”

“No, not always.  You have some other meaning?”

“That is possible.  Now, I do not believe that it was absent-mindedness which made you step in between me and that pretty goose-girl, the other night.”

“Ah!” Carmichael was all alertness.

“It was not, I believe?”

“It was coldly premeditated,” said Carmichael, folding his arms over his cane which he still held behind his back.  His attitude and voice were pleasant.

“It was not friendly.”

“Not to you, perhaps.  But that happens to be an innocent girl, Colonel.  You’re no Herod.  There was nothing selfish in my act.  You really annoyed her.”