A roar of laughter went up, for the majority of them thought that Gretchen was indulging in a little pleasantry.
"Ho-ho! So you are on speaking terms with her highness?" Herr Goldberg laughed.
"Is there anything strange in this fact?" she asked, keeping her tones even.
The vintner made a sign to her, but she ignored it.
"Strange?" echoed Herr Goldberg, becoming furious at having the interest in himself thus diverted. "Since when did goose-girls and barmaids become on intimate terms with her serene highness?"
Gretchen pressed the vintner's arm to hold him in his chair.
"Does not your socialism teach that we are all equal?"
The vintner thumped with his stein in approval, and others imitated him. Goldberg was no ordinary fool. He sidestepped defeat by an assumption of frankness.
"Tell us about it. If I have spoken harshly it is only reasonable. Tell us under what circumstance you met her highness and how she happened to tell you this very important news. Every one knows that this marriage is to take place."
Gretchen nodded. "Nevertheless, her highness has changed her mind." And she recounted picturesquely her adventure in the royal gardens, and all hung on her words in a kind of maze. It was all very well to shout, "Down with royalty!" it was another matter to converse and shake bands with it.
"Hurrah!" shouted the vintner. "Long live her highness! Down with Jugendheit!"
There was a fine chorus.
And there was a fine tableau not down on the evening's program. A police officer and three assistants came down the stairs quietly.
"Let no one leave this room!" the officer said sternly.
The dramatic pause was succeeded by a babel of confusion. Chairs scraped, stems clattered, and the would-be liberators huddled together like so many sheep rounded up by a shepherd-dog.
"Ho, there! Stop him, you!"
It was the vintner who caused this cry; and the agility with which he scrambled through the window into the blind alley was an inspiration.
"After him!" yelled the officer. "He is probably the one rare bird in the bunch."
But they searched in vain.
Gretchen stared ruefully at the blank window.
Somehow this flight pained her; somehow it gave her the heartache to learn that her idol was afraid of such a thing as a policeman.
"Out into the street, every mother's son of you!" cried the officer angrily to the quaking socialists. "This is your last warning, Goldberg. The next time you go to prison for seditious teachings. Out with you!"
The socialists could not have emptied the cellar any quicker had there been a fire.
Gretchen alone remained. It was her duty to carry the steins up to the bar. The officer, rather thorough for his kind, studied the floor under the window. He found a cutting from a newspaper. This interested him.