' She
laughed musically. 'And even so, it is not for your virtues,' she
added.
Otto was embarrassed. 'And now,' he asked, 'if you are anyway
rested?'
'Presently, presently. Let me breathe,' she said, panting a little
harder than before.
'And what has so wearied you?' he asked. 'This bag? And why, in
the name of eccentricity, a bag? For an empty one, you might have
relied on my own foresight; and this one is very far from being
empty. My dear Count, with what trash have you come laden? But the
shortest method is to see for myself.' And he put down his hand.
She stopped him at once. 'Otto,' she said, 'no - not that way. I
will tell, I will make a clean breast. It is done already. I have
robbed the treasury single-handed. There are three thousand two
hundred crowns. O, I trust it is enough!'
Her embarrassment was so obvious that the Prince was struck into a
muse, gazing in her face, with his hand still outstretched, and she
still holding him by the wrist. 'You!' he said at last. 'How?' And
then drawing himself up, 'O madam,' he cried, 'I understand. You
must indeed think meanly of the Prince.'
'Well, then, it was a lie!' she cried. 'The money is mine, honestly
my own - now yours. This was an unworthy act that you proposed.
But I love your honour, and I swore to myself that I should save it
in your teeth. I beg of you to let me save it' - with a sudden
lovely change of tone.
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