“Neither gold nor lands, rank nor splendour,” she answered proudly, “but changeless fidelity of the heart.  Remember your fluttering from lovely Elspet Zohrer to me, and from me to Elspet, Sir Pyramus, and ask yourself what reason you would give me to expect the fulfilment of such a demand.  Your fine figure and gay manner please us girls very well at a dance, but, though you should possess the wealth of the Fuggers and the power of the Sultan, it would be useless trouble to seek my consent.  Stand out of my path at once!  There come the Emperor’s body guards, and, if you do not obey me, as surely as I hope for salvation I will call them!”

The last words had escaped her lips in a raised voice, and vibrated with such honest indignation that the recruiting officer yielded; but a triumphant smile flitted over her beautiful face.

Had she known before how complete a victory he had already won over pretty Elspet Zohrer, her most dangerous rival, this late errand would have been unnecessary.

Yet she did not regret it; true, she cared no more for Pyramus Kogel than for any one else—­the certainty that he, too, had succumbed to the spell of her beauty was associated with a feeling of pleasure whose charm she knew and valued.

CHAPTER VII.

Every one in Ratisbon or at the court who spoke of Sir Wolf Hartschwert called him an excellent fellow.  In fact, he had so few defects and faults that perhaps it might have been better for his advancement in life and his estimation in the circle of society to which he belonged if more of them had clung to him.

Hitherto the vice of avarice was the last with which he could have been reproached.  But, when his old friend filled his glass with wine, the desire that the property left to him might prove larger than he had expected overpowered every other feeling.

Formerly it had been welcome mainly as a testimonial of his old friend’s affection.  He did not need it for his own wants; his position at court yielded him a far larger income than he required for the modest life to which he was accustomed.  For Barbara’s sake alone he eagerly hoped that he had greatly underestimated his foster parents’ possessions.

Ought he to blame her because she desired to change the life of poverty with her father for one which better harmonized with her worth and tastes?  He himself, who had lived years in a Roman palace, surrounded by exquisite works of the gloriously developed Italian art, and then in the one at Brussels, furnished with imperial splendour, did not feel perfectly content in the more than simple room which Blomberg called his “artist workshop.”

A few rude wooden chairs, a square table with clumsy feet, and an open cupboard in which stood a few tin cups, were, the sole furniture of the narrow, disproportionately long room, whose walls were washed with gray.  The ceiling, with its exposed beams, was blackened by the pine torches which were often used for lights.  Pieces of board were nailed over the defective spots in the floor, and the lines where the walls met rarely showed a right angle.