leasure of dancing with the man she loved and
who had first taught her how beautiful life was. This perhaps incautious
remark had roused the ire of the suffering monarch.

How sensitive was this man's consciousness of sovereignty, how much
suspicion and bitterness must have gathered in his heart, if he could
see in the girl's innocent compassion an offence to his dignity, a
humiliating reproach!

The rebuking sharpness with which he expressed his displeasure had
pierced her very soul. She felt as if she were shivering with a sudden
chill, and for a long time she could not recover the loving warmth with
which she had previously treated him. True, he had soon done everything
in his power to atone for the pain which his irritability had inflicted,
but the incident had given her the perception that the poets whose songs
she sung were right when they made sorrow go hand in hand with the joys
of love.

But as yet these joys of love far, far outweighed the suffering which it
caused.

Even while, before the full knapsack which only needed locking, she
was trying to discover what fault was to be found with the man whom she
loved, while saying to herself that Charles's inconsiderate, selfish
treatment of her father was unworthy of a generous man, and while also
thinking of the separation from the faithful Wolf, her heart still
longed for her lover.

Was she not, after all, under obligation to be grateful to him for
everything for which she reproached him?

How dear she must be to this great sovereign, since, in order to possess
her freely and completely, he allowed himself to be urged to an act
which was unworthy of him!

If he had wounded her deeply, he had a right to expect her to excuse
many things in him.

How he loved her, and how delicately he could woo and flatter, and
mingle with his tender speeches the costly gifts of his rich and mobile
intellect! How beautifully and aptly he could speak of her own art, and
induce her to oppose to his clever remarks her own modest opinion!
He had cheerfully endured contradiction the night before during the
conversation concerning music.

But what had followed her luckless regret about his lame foot?

The words had pierced her heart like knives; even now she did not
understand where she obtained the strength to withhold the sharp answer
for which her lips had already parted; but she knew her hasty spirit,
which only too easily led her to outbreaks of anger. Had the power of