Eva hastily turned towards him, her cheek still flushed, but all confusion overcome. "Did you arrange this visit of which you now tell me, Herr Delmar?" she asked, not without asperity.
"I may have done so. You expressed a wish yesterday to see again Fräulein Hilda von Heydeck. I could not suppose that you contemplated going up to the castle, and I therefore proposed that Fräulein Hilda should come to you. She only half promised, however, and I am not sure she will be able to fulfil her intent."
"I was not speaking of Fräulein Hilda, but of Herr von Heydeck. I asked whether you had arranged this visit, because I had hoped you would remember what I said yesterday."
"You said yesterday that you were not afraid of meeting my friend."
"And I also said that I thought it desirable that any such meeting should be avoided. It is not fair in you, Herr Delmar, intentionally to expose me to embarrassment of this kind."
While she was speaking Paul regarded her with gentle gravity; her reckless frankness enlisted his sympathy profoundly. As she finished he bent his head, and in a low and gentle tone said, "Your frank, honest reproof shall receive as frank and honest a reply. I might easily deceive you by telling you that Leo must see his friend Herwarth, and that therefore I had arranged this visit; but I will not deceive you. Frankly and honestly, then, I wish Leo to see you again for his own sake and--for yours!"
"Herr Delmar, I must beg----"
"Stay, Fräulein Schommer! I know what you would say. You would accuse me of unjustifiable interference in your affairs which are no concern of mine; but there you are wrong. I take a deeper interest in them than you would probably think permissible, but nothing is so near to me in this world as Leo's happiness. You see I am honest and do not flatter you."
"No, you have shown me that you do not, both yesterday and to-day; yet I really cannot see what interest your affection for Herr von Heydeck can have for me."
"That is not said with your usual ingenuousness, Fräulein Schommer," Delmar said earnestly. "You know well that you take a degree of interest in my friend Leo's destiny, and you ought not to deny it. Leo bitterly regrets having been misled in an unfortunate moment to say words which wounded you."