the sofa but for a heap of books there covered from dust, perhaps concealed, that the yellow Parisian volumes, of which I caught sight of some new dozen, might not be an attraction to the eyes of chance-comers.  At the lake-palace the prince frequently gave audience here.  He had said to me, when I stated my wish to read in the library, ‘You keep to the classical department?’ I thought it possible he might not like the coloured volumes to be inspected; I had no taste for a perusal of them.  I picked up one that fell during my walk, and flung it back, and disturbed a heap under cover, for more fell, and there I let them lie.

Ottilia did not keep me waiting.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE SCENE IN THE LAKE-PALACE LIBRARY

I was humming the burden of Gothe’s Zigeunerlied, a favourite one with me whenever I had too much to think of, or nothing.  A low rush of sound from the hall-doorway swung me on my heel, and I saw her standing with a silver lamp raised in her right hand to the level of her head, as if she expected to meet obscurity.  A thin blue Indian scarf mufed her throat and shoulders.  Her hair was loosely knotted.  The lamp’s full glow illumined and shadowed her.  She was like a statue of Twilight.

I went up to her quickly, and closed the door, saying, ‘You have come’; my voice was not much above a breath.

She looked distrustfully down the length of the room; ’You were speaking to some one?’

‘No.’

‘You were speaking.’

‘To myself, then, I suppose.’

I remembered and repeated the gipsy burden.

She smiled faintly and said it was the hour for Anna and Ursel and Kith and Liese to be out.

Her hands were gloved, a small matter to tell of.

We heard the portico-sentinel challenged and relieved.

‘Midnight,’ I said.

She replied:  ’You were not definite in your directions about the minutes.’

‘I feared to name midnight.’

‘Why?’

’Lest the appointment of midnight—­I lose my knowledge of you!—­should make you reflect, frighten you.  You see, I am inventing a reason; I really cannot tell why, if it was not that I hoped to have just those few minutes more of you.  And now they’re gone.  I would not have asked you but that I thought you free to act.’

‘I am.’

‘And you come freely?’

‘A “therefore” belongs to every grant of freedom.’

‘I understand:  your judgement was against it.’

‘Be comforted,’ she said; ’it is your right to bid me come, if you think fit.’

One of the sofa-volumes fell.  She caught her breath; and smiled at her foolish alarm.

I told her that it was my intention to start for England in the morning; that this was the only moment I had, and would be the last interview:  my rights, if I possessed any, and I was not aware that I did, I threw down.