Being of a discerning mind, she idled about the Platz till after nine, for it had been told to her that the great sleep rather late in the morning. What should she say to her serene highness? What kind of a curtsy should she make? These and a hundred other questions flitted through her head. At least she would wear no humble, servile air. For Gretchen was a bit of a socialist. Did not Herr Goldberg, whom the police detested, did he not say that all men were equal? And surely this sweeping statement included women! She attended secret meetings in the damp cellar of the Black Eagle, and, while she laughed at some of the articles in the propaganda, she received seriously enough that which proclaimed her the equal of any one. So long as she obeyed nature's laws and Heaven's, was she not indeed the equal of queens and princesses, who, it was said, did not always obey these laws?
With a confidence born of right and innocence, she proceeded toward the east or side gates of the palace. The sentry smiled at her.
"I have a letter for her serene highness," she said.
"Leave it."
"I am under orders to give it to her highness herself."
"Good day, then!" laughed the soldier. "You can not enter the gardens without a permit."
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.