There, too, she had determined, if the Emperor ever gave her any power over his decisions, to reward Wolf's loyal love by interceding for him wherever it could be done.
Now he had left her; but she could wait for her father no longer.

She must go to Fran Lerch.
The idea of confiding to her the secret which filled her with happy dread was far from her thoughts; but love had both increased her vanity tenfold, and confined it within narrower limits.

She could not be beautiful enough for the lover who awaited her, yet she wished to be beautiful for him alone.

But her stock of gowns and finery was so very scanty, and no one understood how to set off her charms so well as the obliging, experienced old woman, who had an expedient for every emergency.
Retiring to her little bow-windowed room, she examined her store of clothes.
There, too, lay her royal lover's gift, the glittering star.
She involuntarily seized it to take the jewel to the Grieb and show it to the old woman; but the next instant, with a strange feeling of dissatisfaction, she flung it back again among the other contents of the chest.
Thus, in her impetuous fashion, she thrust it out of her sight.

Maestro Gombert had pronounced the star extremely valuable, and she desired nothing from the Emperor Charles, nothing from her beloved lord save his love.
She had already reached the outer door, when her two Woller cousins from the Ark greeted her.