Transported out of herself, she did not heed the starry heavens above her head, at which she usually gazed with so much pleasure—­Wolf had taught her to recognise the most beautiful planets and fixed stars—­nor at the night birds which, attracted by the torches of the horsemen riding in advance, often darted close by her, nor the flattering words to which she was wont to listen willingly, and which few understood how to choose better than the well-trained breaker of hearts at her side.

The envoys had taken care that the city gate should be kept open for them.  Not until the hoofs of her gray horse rang upon the pavement did Barbara awake from the dream of longing which had held her captive.  She started in alarm, raised her little plumed cap, and drew a long breath.  The ancient, well-known houses along the sides of the streets brought her back to reality and its demands.

She could not appear before the Emperor just as she was, in her riding habit, with disordered hair.  Besides, her head was burning after the dancing and the wine which she had drunk.  She must calm herself ere entering the presence of the royal connoisseur whose approval could render her so happy, whose dissatisfaction or indifference would make her wretched.

Quickly forming her resolution, she turned to Malfalconnet and explained that she could not appear before his Majesty until after she had allowed herself a short period of rest; but the baron, who probably feared that some feminine caprice would spoil, even at the twelfth hour, the successful issue of his mission, thought that he must deny this wish, though in the most courteous manner and with the assurance that he would procure her an opportunity to collect her thoughts quietly in the Golden Cross.

Barbara unexpectedly wheeled her horse, struck him a blow with the whip, and called to the astonished gentlemen, “In front of the Golden Cross in a quarter of an hour.  You, Wolf, can wait for me at the Grieb.”

The last words were already dying away as she clashed swiftly up the street and across the Haidplatz.  Bright sparks flashed from the paving stones struck by her horse’s hoofs.

“Confounded witch!” cried Malfalconnet.  “And how the unruly girl wheels her horse and sits erect in her wild career over the flagstones!  If the gray falls, it will do her no harm.  Such rising stars may drop from the skies, but they will leap up again like the cats which I threw from the roof when a boy.  His Majesty will get something to trouble him if he continues his admiration.  Sacre Dieu!  What a temperament!—­and a German!”

Hitherto both had ridden on at a walk, gazing after Barbara, although she had already vanished in the darkness, which was illumined only by the stars in the cloudless sky.  Now the clock struck half-past ten, and Malfalconnet exclaimed, half to the young knight, half to himself, “If only the wild bird does not yet escape our snare!”