odest young girl, who had
scarcely passed beyond childhood, that he did not leave her until the
'Rai' began, and then quitted her with the entreaty that she would remove
the cap which had hitherto rendered her invisible, to the injury of
knights and gentlemen, and be present at the dance which he should soon
give at the castle.

The pleasant old nobleman had scarcely left her when she turned towards
the young man who had just approached with the evident intention of
leading her to the dance, but he was again standing beside Cordula von
Montfort, and a feeling of keen resentment overpowered her.

The young countess was challenging his attention still more boldly,
tossing her head back so impetuously that the turban-like roll on her
hair, spite of the broad ribbon that fastened it under her chin, almost
fell on the floor. But her advances not only produced no effect, but
seemed to annoy the knight. What charm could he find in a girl who, in a
costume which displayed the greatest extreme of fashion, resembled a Turk
rather than a Christian woman? True, she had an aristocratic bearing, and
perhaps Els was right in saying that her strongly marked features
revealed a certain degree of kindliness, but she wholly lacked the spell
of feminine modesty. Her pleasant grey eyes and full red lips seemed
created only for laughter, and the plump outlines of her figure were
better suited to a matron than a maiden in her early girlhood. Not the
slightest defect escaped Eva during this inspection. Meanwhile she
remembered her own image in the mirror, and a smile of satisfaction
hovered round her red lips.

Now the knight bowed.

Was he inviting the countess to dance again? No, he turned his back to
her and approached Eva, whose lovely, childlike face brightened as if a
sun beam had shone upon it. The possibility of refusing her hand for the
'Rai' never entered her head, but he told her voluntarily that he had
invited Countess Cordula for the Polish dance solely in consequence of
the Burgravine's command, but now that he was permitted to linger at her
side he meant to make up for lost time.

He kept his word, and was by no means content with the 'Rai'; for, after
the young Duchess Agnes had summoned him to a 'Zauner', and during its
continuance again talked with him far more confidentially than the modest
Nuremberg maiden could approve, he persuaded Eva to try the 'Schwabeln'
with him also; and though she had always disliked such danc