“Impossible,” answered Barbara firmly.  “If I were really cruel, I would yield to your skill in tempting, and render you the base betrayer of the greatest and noblest of masters.”

“Does not every one who gazes at your beauty or listens to your song become such a monster, at least in thought?” asked the baron gaily.  “Are you really so inexorable about the dance?”

“As this statue,” Barbara answered with mirthful resolution, pointing to a plaster figure which was intended to represent the goddess Flora or the month of May.  “But let us stay here a few minutes longer, though only as spectators.”

Barbara expressed this wish because a group of young gentlemen, who had always been among those who sought her most eagerly for a partner at the dances in the New Scales, had attracted her attention.  They were engaged in an animated discussion, which from their glances and gestures evidently concerned Barbara.

Bernhard Trainer, the tall son of an old and wealthy family, who loved Martina Hiltner, and had been incensed by Barbara’s treatment of her, seemed to gain his point, and when the city pipers began to play again, all of them—­probably a dozen in number—­passed by her arm-in-arm in couples, with their eyes studiously fixed upon the opposite side of the dancing floor.

Barbara could entertain no doubt that this insulting act was intended to wound her.  The “little castle,” as it was called in Prebrunn, owned by Bernhard Trainer’s family, was near the bishop’s house which she occupied.  Therefore the Trainers had probably heard more than others about the visits she received.  Or did the gentlemen consider that she deserved punishment for not treating Martina more kindly?

Whatever might have caused the unseemly act, in Barbara’s eyes it was a base trick, which filled her with furious rage against the instigators.  Had she shared the Emperor’s power, it would have been a delight to her in this hour to repay the malignant insult in the same or far heavier coin.  But, on Malfalconnet’s account, she must submit in silence to what had been inflicted upon her.

So, in a muffled tone, she requested the baron to take her back to the tent, but while fulfilling her wish he wondered at the long strides of the capricious young lady at his side, and the mortifying inattention with which she received his questions.

Meanwhile the Emperor had returned to the throne, and Maurice of Saxony was again standing beside him, while the chamberlain Andreas Wolff was humbly, inviting the monarch to make the Ratisbon young people happy by visiting the scene of the dancing.

After a dance of inquiry at the duke, Charles assented to this request.  But they must pardon him if he remained a shorter time than he himself would desire, as the physician was urging his return home.

While the chamberlain was retiring, Charles saw Barbara leaning on Malfalconnet’s arm, beckoned to them, and asked her whether she had yielded to her love for dancing.