e different. I see now that my people knew of what they spoke when
they called me mad to think of wedding a clod of the people, such as
you."

For a moment I thought that he was going to strike her. I think he would
have, if she had flinched. But she did not. Her head was held high, and
her eyes did not waver.

"I married you for love. It is most comical, is it not? With you
I thought I should find peace, and happiness and a re-birth of the
intellect that was being smothered in the splendor and artificiality
and the restrictions of my life there. Well, I was wrong. But wrong.
Now hear me!" Her voice was tense with passion. "There will be gowns--as
many and as rich as I choose. You have said many times that the ladies
of Amerika you admire. And see! I shall be also one of those so-admired
ladies. My money shall go for gowns! For hats! For trifles of lace and
velvet and fur! You shall learn that it is not a peasant woman whom you
have married. This is Amerika, the land of the free, my husband. And
see! Who is more of Amerika than I? Who?"

She laughed a high little laugh and came over to me, taking my hands in
her own.

"Dear girl, you must run quickly and dress. For this evening we go to
the theater. Oh, but you must. There shall be no unpleasantness, that I
promise. My husband accompanies us--with joy. Is it not so, Konrad? With
joy? So!"

Wildly I longed to decline, but I dared not. So I only nodded, for fear
of the great lump in my throat, and taking Frau Knapf's hand I turned
and fled with her. Frau Knapf was muttering:

"Du Hund! Du unverschamter Hund du!" in good Billingsgate German, and
wiping her eyes with her apron. And I dressed with trembling fingers
because I dared not otherwise face the brave little Austrian, the plucky
little aborigine who, with the donning of the new Amerikanische gown had
acquired some real Amerikanisch nerve.

CHAPTER XI. VON GERHARD SPEAKS

Of Von Gerhard I had not had a glimpse since that evening of my
hysterical outburst. On Christmas day there had come a box of roses so
huge that I could not find vases enough to hold its contents, although
I pressed into service everything from Mason jars from the kitchen to
hand-painted atrocities from the parlor. After I had given posies to
Frau Nirlanger, and fastened a rose in Frau Knapf's hard knob of hair,
where it bobbed in ludicrous discomfort, I still had enough to fill the
washbowl. My room looked like a grand opera star's b