"Gretchen?"
She did not speak.
"What is it?"
"You ask?"
"Was it a crime, then, to jump out of the window?" He laughed.
Gretchen's face grew sterner. "Were you afraid?"
"For a moment. I have never run afoul the police. I thought perhaps we
were all to be arrested."
"Well, and what then?"
"What then? Uncomfortable quarters in stone rooms. I preferred
discretion to valor."
"Perhaps you did not care to have the police ask you questions?"
"What is all this about?" He pulled her toward him so that he could look
into her eyes.
"What is the matter? Answer!"
"Are you not a spy from Jugendheit?" thinly.
He flung aside her hand. "So! The first doubt that enters your ear finds
harbor there. A spy from Jugendheit; that is a police suggestion, and
you believed it!"
"Do you deny it?" Gretchen was not cowed by his anger, which her own
evenly matched.
"Yes," proudly, snatching his hat from his head and throwing it
violently at her feet; "yes, I deny it. I am not a spy from any country;
I have not sold the right to look any man in the eye."
"I have asked you many questions," she replied, "but you are always
laughing. It is a pleasant way to avoid answering. I have given you my
heart and all its secrets. Have you opened yours as frankly?"
To meet anger with logic and sense is the simplest way to overcome it.
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