“Simply enough.  You would be a singer at the opera some day, and take them all to live with you.  Is there no other reason?” He recollected with a vivid sense of the disagreeable the lively antics of a lithe youth in the company, who, at the close of the concert, executed with diabolic dexterity what they called a Schuhplattltanz.  This dance had glued Krayne’s attention, for Roeselein was the young tenor singer’s partner.  With their wooden sabots they clattered and sang, waving wildly their arms or else making frantic passages of pretended love and coquetry.  It upset the Englishman to see the impudence of this common peasant fellow grasping Roeselein by the waist, as he whirled her about in the boorish dance.  Hence the clause to his question.  She endured his inquiring gaze, as she simply answered:—­

“No, there is no other reason.”  She put her hand on the arm of her companion and the lights suddenly became misty, for he was of an apoplectic tendency.  They talked of music, of the opera in Vienna and Prague.  She was born in Bavaria, not more than a day’s ride from Marienbad.  You could almost see her country from the top of the Podhornberg, in the direction of the Franconian Mountains, not far from Bayreuth.  The place was called Schnabelwaid, and it was very high, very windy.  Since her tenth year she had been singing—­yes, even in the chorus at the Vienna opera, with her sister and brother.  They were no common yodlers.  They could sing all the music of the day.  The yodling was part of their business, as was the costume.  Later, when she had enough saved, she would study in Vienna for grand opera!

He was enraptured.  How romantic it all was!  A free-born maiden—­he was certain she was reared in some old castle—­wandering about earning money for her musical education.  What a picture for a painter!  What a story for a novelist!  They were interrupted.  The dancer, a young man with a heavy shock of hair growing low on his forehead, under which twinkled beady black eyes, had been sent to tell Fraeulein Roeselein that her colleagues were waiting for her.  With a courtesy she went away.  Krayne now thoroughly hated the dancer.

It was long after eleven when the concert was over and the party started on its homeward trip.  Krayne and Roeselein walked behind the others, and soon the darkness and the narrowness of the road forced him to tread after the girl.  The moon’s rays at intervals pierced the foliage, making lacelike patches of light in the gloom.  At times they skirted the edges of a circular clearing and saw the high pines fringing the southern horizon; overhead the heavens were almost black, except where great streams of stars swept in irregular bands.  It was a glorious sight, Krayne told Roeselein—­too sublime to be distracted by mere mortal love-making, he mentally added.  Nevertheless he was glad when they were again in the woods; he could barely distinguish the girl ahead of him, but her outline made his heart beat faster.  Once, as they neared the town, he helped her down a declivity into the roadway, and he could not help squeezing her hand.  The pressure was returned.  He boldly placed her arm within his, and they at last reached the streets, but not before, panting with mingled fright and emotion, he solemnly kissed her.  She did not appear surprised.