“In-de-e-ed?” Loni asked in astonishment, lifting the gold circlet which rested on his head.  Then he passed his hand through the coal-black hair which, parted in the middle, fell in smooth strands upon his neck, and exerted all his powers of persuasion to convince her of the folly of her plan.  After his arguments were exhausted he raised his voice louder.  As usual, when excited by anger, he swung his lower right arm to and fro, feeling the prominent muscles with his left hand.  But Kuni remained resolute, and when be at last perceived that his opposition only increased her obstinacy, he exclaimed: 

“Then rush on to your destruction!  The day will come when you will see where you belong.  If only it doesn’t arrive too late.  A man grows twelve and a woman thirty-six months older every year.”

With these words he turned his back upon her, and the clown brought the amount of wages which was due.

Many an eye grew dim with tears when Kuni bade farewell to her companions.  Shortly after sunset she was welcomed to Frau Schurstab’s house.

The first greeting was friendly, and she received nothing but kindness and indulgent treatment afterward.  She had a sunny chamber of her own, and how large and soft her bed was!  But while, when on the road with Loni’s band, if they could reach no town, she had often slept soundly and sweetly on a heap of straw, here she spent one restless night after another.

During the first a series of questions disturbed her slumber.  Was it really only the desire to take her from her vagabond life which had induced Lienhard to open this house to her?  Did he not perhaps also cherish the wish to keep her near him?  He had certainly come to her with Frau Schurstab to protect her reputation.  Had it not been so he might have left the matron at home; for Loni and everybody in the company knew that she never troubled herself about gossip.  Last year she had obtained a leave of absence from Loni, who was making a tour of the little Frank towns, and spent the carnival season in revelry with a sergeant of the Nurembreg soldiers.  When the booty he had gained in Italy was squandered, she gave him his dismissal.  Her reputation among her companions was neither better nor worse than that of the other strolling players who, like her, were born on the highway, yet she was glad that Lienhard had tried to spare her.  Or had he only come with the old noblewoman on account of his own fair name?

Perhaps—­her pulses again throbbed faster at the thought—­he had not ventured to come alone because some feeling for her stirred in his own heart, and, spite of his beautiful young wife, he did not feel safe from her.  Then Fran Schurstab was to serve as a shield.  This conjecture flattered her vanity and reconciled her to the step which she had taken and already began to regret.

But suppose he really felt no more for her than the forester who finds a child lost in the woods, and guides it into the right path?  How would she endure that?  Yet, were it otherwise, if he was like the rest of men, if he profited by what her whole manner must betray to him, how should she face his wife, who undoubtedly would soon come to call on her aunt?