“Do not be alarmed!  I will come no more.  I should not have come at all, if I could have foreseen. . .”

“That you would meet me?”

“Perhaps.—­But do not flatter yourself too much on that account!—­As to my listening. . . .  Well, yes; I was standing at the window.  Inside the room I could only half hear, and who does not want to hear what great men have to say to each other?  And, excepting your father, I have met none such in Memphis since Memnon left the city.  We women have inherited some curiosity from our mother Eve; but we rarely indulge it so far as to hunt for a necklace in our neighbor’s trunk!  I have no luck as a criminal, my dear Orion.  Twice have I deserved the name.  Thanks to the generous and liberal use you made of my inexperience I sinned—­sinned so deeply that it has ruined my whole life; and now, again, in a more venial way; but I was caught out, you see, in both cases.”

“Your taunts are merited,” said Orion sadly.  “And yet, Child, we may both thank Providence, which did not leave us to wander long on the wrong road.  Once already I have besought your forgiveness, and I do so now again.  That does not satisfy you I see—­and I can hardly blame you.  Perhaps you will be better pleased, when I assure you once more that no sin was ever more bitterly or cruelly punished than mine has been.”

“Indeed!” said Katharina with a drawl; then, with a flutter of her fan, she went on airily:  “And yet you look anything rather than crushed; and have even succeeded in winning ’the other’—­Paula, if I am not mistaken.”

“That will do!” said Orion decisively, and he raised the key to the lock.  Katharina, however, placed herself in his way, raised a threatening finger, and exclaimed: 

“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.”