Na, I did not mean to
frighten you, Dawn. How your hands tremble. So, look at
me. You would like Vienna, Kindchen. You would like the
gayety, and the brightness of it, and the music, and the
pretty women, and the incomparable gowns. Your sense of
humor would discern the hollowness beneath all the pomp
and ceremony and rigid lines of caste, and military glory;
and your writer's instinct would revel in the splendor, and
color and romance and intrigue."
I shrugged my shoulders in assumed indifference.
"Can't you convey all this to me without grasping my
wrists like a villain in a melodrama? Besides, it isn't
very generous or thoughtful of you to tell me all this,
knowing that it is not for me. Vienna for you, and
Milwaukee and cheese sandwiches for me. Please pass the
mustard."
But the hold on my wrists grew firmer. Von Gerhard's
eyes were steady as they gazed into mine. "Dawn, Vienna,
and the whole world is waiting for you, if you will but
take it. Vienna--and happiness--with me--"
I wrenched my wrists free with a dreadful effort and
rose, sick, bewildered, stunned. My world--my refuge of
truth, and honor, and safety and sanity that had lain in
Ernst von Gerhard's great, steady hands, was slipping
away from me.
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