“So I should think!—­Now I am certain.  However, you are right with your insolent ‘That will do!’ I do not care a rush for your love affairs; still, there is one thing I should like to know, which concerns myself alone; how could you see over our garden hedge?  Anubis is scarcely a head shorter than you are. . . .”

“And you made him try?” interrupted Orion, who could not forbear smiling, perceiving that his honestly meant gravity was thrown away on Katharina.  “Notwithstanding such a praiseworthy experiment, I may beg you to note for future cases that what is true of him is not true of every one, and that, besides foot-passengers, a tall man sometimes mounts a tall horse?”

“It was you, then, who rode by last night?”

“And who could not resist glancing up at your window.”

At these words she drew back in surprise, and her eyes lighted up, but only for an instant; then, clenching the feathers of her fan in both hands, she sharply asked: 

“Is that in mockery?”

“Certainly not,” said Orion coolly; “for though you have reason enough to
be angry with me......”

“I, at any rate, have, so far given you none,” she petulantly broke in.  “No, I have not.  It is I, and I alone, who have been insulted and ill-used; you must confess that you owe me some amends, and that I have a right to ask them.”

“Do so,” replied he.  “I am yours to command.”  She looked him straight in the face.

“First of all,” she began, “have you told any one else that I was. . .”

“That you were listening?  No—­not a living soul.”

“And will you promise never to betray me?”

“Willingly.  Now, what is the ‘secondly’ to this ‘first of all?’”

But there was no immediate answer; the water-wagtail evidently found it difficult.  However, she presently said, with downcast eyes: 

“I want....  You will think me a greater fool than I am.... nevertheless, yes, I will ask you, though it will involve me in fresh humiliation.—­I want to know the truth; and if there is anything you hold sacred, before I ask, you must swear by what is holiest to answer me, not as if I were a silly girl, but as if I were the Supreme judge at the last day.—­Do you hear?”

“This is very solemn,” said Orion.  “And you must allow me to observe that there are some questions which do not concern us alone, and if yours is such......”

“No, no,” replied Katharina, “what I mean concerns you and me alone.”

“Then I see no reason for refusing,” he said.  “Still, I may ask you a favor in return.  It seems to me no less important than it did to you, to know what a great man like the patriarch finds to talk about, and since I place myself at your commands....”

“I thought,” said the girl with a smile, “that your first object would be to discharge some small portion of your debt to me; however, I expect no excessive magnanimity, and the little I heard is soon told.  It cannot matter much to you either—­so I will agree to your wishes, and you, in return, must promise. . . .”