"I am speaking all the time. I asked if it were well to betray the
secrets of your royal mistress."
"I have been starved," said Annalise.
"You have had the same fare as ourselves."
"I have been called names."
"Have I not expressed--regret?"
"I have been treated as dirt."
"Well, well, I have apologized."
"If you had behaved to me as a maid of a royal lady should be behaved
to, I would have faithfully done my part and kept silence. Now give me
my money and I will go."
"I will give you your money--certainly, _liebes Kind_. It is what I am
most desirous of doing. But only on condition that you stay. If you
go, you go without it. If you stay, I will do as I said about the cook
and will--" Fritzing paused--"I will endeavour to refrain from calling
you anything hasty."
"Two hundred marks," said Annalise gazing at the ceiling, "is
nothing."
"Nothing?" cried Fritzing. "You know very well that it is, for you, a
great sum."
"It is nothing. I require a thousand."
"A thousand? What, fifty English sovereigns? Nay, then, but there is
no reasoning with you," cried Fritzing in tones of real despair.
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