Marion turned and ran up the library stairs to the second floor, while Sabina hastened on along the corridor and down the grand staircase. She arrived at the ground floor just as the front bell sounded.

She paused a moment or two, took a couple of deep breaths to calm her agitation, then opened the door and stepped out, almost in the same motion, closing the door behind herself.

“Gustav,” she said brightly, “how nice to see you.”

“Guten Tag, Sabina,” he said, stepping back as she exited so forcefully. “You are… on your way someplace?” he added with uncertainty. In truth, he was more taken aback by her friendly tone than by the peculiar way in which she had so hastily answered his ring and nearly flown out the door.

“No,” she replied.

“You seem… out of breath.”

“Do I? I have just been—uh—cleaning my room.”

Gustav apparently considered a reply, thought better of it, then said, “I am home for a few days, and I wanted to visit you. May we go in and sit down?”

“Oh, Gustav, it’s such a grand day—I’d rather stay outside. Would you like to walk in the garden?”

As she spoke, Sabina began wandering away from the house. Gustav followed, hardly about to refuse. Sabina hadn’t treated him with such friendliness in years! Such a walk would fit in with his plans admirably—it was just why he had come!

He quickly caught up with her, and as they walked around the west wing he put his arm confidently around her shoulder.

Sabina squirmed out from under its reptilian weight and stepped away, continuing to walk but her face growing red.

Affronted, Gustav glanced toward her.

“What was that for?” he said.

“I could ask the same of you,” she rejoined, not without tartness.

“Come, Sabina,” he replied with a smile of bravado, “we are adults now. You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

“I am not afraid.”

“Then why so timid?”

“Because I don’t want you thinking you can be so familiar with me.”

“Are you still upset over the business of the rose at my birthday?” he laughed.

“No more than with your putting your arm around me.” Sabina was doing her best to keep annoyance from getting the better of her. Whatever she might say to the contrary, she knew well enough that Gustav was indeed a dangerous young man. She must watch herself.

“A rose… my arm—what are you so nervous about, Sabina? Do you still refuse to look realistically at the inevitability of being my wife?”

“Inevitability,” repeated Sabina. She did not want to become angry. Yet she was determined to put a stop to her neighbor’s profound misunderstanding. “You’re the one who has to look at it realistically, Gustav. I have no intention of becoming your wife.”