"
Gretchen remembered. "Will you send some one to his excellency the
chancellor and tell him I have come from number forty Krumerweg?"
"Krumerweg? The very name ought to close any gate. But, girl, are you
speaking truthfully?"
Gretchen exhibited the note. He scratched his chin, perplexed.
"Run along. If they ask me, I'll say that I didn't see you." The sentry
resumed his beat.
Gretchen stepped inside the gates, and the real beauty of the gardens
was revealed to her for the first time. Strange flowers she had never
seen before, plants with great broad leaves, grass-like carpet, and
giant ferns, unlike anything she had plucked in the valleys and the
mountains. It was all a fairy-land. There were marble urns with hanging
vines, and marble statues. She loitered in this pebbled path and that,
forgetful of her errand. Even had her mind been filled with the
importance of it, she did not know where to go to find the proper
entrance.
A hand grasped her rudely by the arm.
"What are you doing here?" thundered the head gardener. "Be off with
you! Don't you know that no one is allowed in here without a permit?"
Gretchen wrenched free her arm. She was angry.
"How dare you touch me like that?"
Something in her glance, which was singularly arrogant, cooled even the
warm-blooded Hermann.
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