"No, I am a maid," replied Amrei, looking him full in the face. The stranger's eyes almost fell; the lids quivered, but he held them open by force. And this struggle and victory of the bodily eye seemed to be a symbol of what was going on within him. He felt almost inclined to leave the girl sitting there; but he resisted and conquered the impulse, and said:
He held her hand fast, and the pleasure and excitement began again; but this time it was more quiet and moderate. Both of them seemed to feel that the sensation of being lifted to the sky was over and past; and this thought was evidently in Amrei's mind when she said:
"Well, we have been very happy together once, even if we don't see each other again in all our lives, and even though neither of us knows the other's name."
Amrei held the end of her braid between her lips in embarrassment, and after a pause spoke again:
"The enjoyment one has once had cannot be taken from one; and whoever you are, you need never repent of having given a poor girl a pleasure she will remember all her life."
"I don't repent of it," replied her partner. "But I know that you repent of having answered me so sharply this morning."
"Oh, yes, you are right there!" cried Amrei; and then the stranger said:
"Would you venture to go out into the field with me?"
"I have nobody but myself to give account of my actions to; I am an orphan."
Hand in hand the two went out of the dancing-room. Barefoot heard several people whispering and tittering behind her, but she kept her eyes fixed on the ground. She wondered if she had not ventured too far after all.
In the fields, where the first ears of wheat were beginning to sprout and still lay half concealed in their green sheaths, the two stopped and stood looking at each other in silence. For a long time neither said a word. But finally it was the man who broke the silence, by saying, half to himself:
"I wonder how it is that one, on first sight, can be so--so--I don't know--so confidential with a person? How is it one can read what is written in another's face?" "Now we have set a poor soul free," said Amrei; "for you know, when two people think the same thought at the same time, they are said to set a soul free. And I was thinking the very words you just spoke."