d, scarcely governing the words, quite without ideas; 'For
you to be indifferent to rank--yes, you may well be; you have intellect;
you are high above me in both--' So on, against good taste and common
sense.

She cried: 'Oh! no compliments from you to me. I will receive them, if
you please, by deputy. Let my Professor hear your immense admiration for
his pupil's accomplishments. Hear him then in return! He will beat at me
like the rainy West wind on a lily. "See," he will say, when I am broken
and bespattered, "she is fair, she is stately, is she not!" And really I
feel, at the sound of praise, though I like it, that the opposite,
satire, condemnation, has its good right to pelt me. Look; there is the
tower, there 's the statue, and under that line of pine-trees the path we
ran up;--"dear English boys!" as I remember saying to myself; and what
did you say of me?'

Her hand was hanging loose. I grasped it. She drew a sudden long breath,
and murmured, without fretting to disengage herself,

'My friend, not that!'

Her voice carried an unmistakeable command. I kissed above the fingers
and released them.

'Are you still able to run?' said she, leading with an easy canter, face
averted. She put on fresh speed; I was outstripped.

Had she quitted me in anger? Had she parted from me out of view of the
villa windows to make it possible for us to meet accidentally again in
the shadow of her old protecting Warhead, as we named him from his
appearance, gaunt Schwartz?

CHAPTER XXIX

AN EVENING WITH DR. JULIUS VON KARSTEG

In my perplexity, I thought of the Professor's saying: 'A most fortunate
or a most unfortunate young man.' These words began to strike me as
having a prophetic depth that I had not fathomed. I felt myself fast
becoming bound in every limb, every branch of my soul. Ottilia met me
smiling. She moved free as air. She could pursue her studies, and argue
and discuss and quote, keep unclouded eyes, and laugh and play, and be
her whole living self, unfettered, as if the pressure of my hand implied
nothing. Perhaps for that reason I had her pardon. 'My friend, not that!'
Her imperishably delicious English rang me awake, and lulled me asleep.
Was it not too securely friendly? Or was it not her natural voice to the
best beloved, bidding him respect her, that we might meet with the
sanction of her trained discretion? The Professor would invite me to his
room after the 'sleep well' of the ladies, and I sat