Suddenly another idea flashed upon him. Eva had defended Heydeck with a warmth she had never as yet shown to any one besides. Was it his life and his future for which she trembled if he should make up his mind to fight? Her tender consideration was, then, all for Heydeck; for him her intense desire that the quarrel should have a peaceful conclusion. She loved Bertram's enemy, hence her sad surprise entirely devoid of anger, when she heard that he had called her purse-proud. She loved Heydeck, who despised her! For an instant, but only for an instant, this thought filled Bertram with savage indignation; the next moment he smiled, for there occurred to him with the swiftness of thought a scheme whereby he might turn this love to his own account. New hopes immediately sprang to being within him; he would not try to win Eva's heart. What did he care for the girl's heart? She might give her hopeless, unrequited affection to whomsoever she chose if she would give her millions to the husband whom she hated.
Bertram needed but a few moments to decide how to act. Fortunately Eva gave him these few moments to ponder upon her request, and when he replied his mind was entirely made up. "You do not dream what you require of me, Fräulein Schommer," he said with great gravity. "You ask nothing more or less than the entire annihilation of my future. I spoke the words in question to Heydeck in a public place before numerous witnesses; they must be retracted in the same manner before Heydeck can be justified in not fighting me."
"Do so, Herr von Bertram,--I implore you, do so!" Eva begged afresh.
"And if I do so, what have I to expect? I will tell you, Fräulein Schommer; it is right that you should know the full extent of the request you have made of me. After I have made a public retractation all my comrades who have hitherto been my friends will fall away from me and despise me. 'He is a coward,' they will say; 'afraid evidently of Heydeck's well-known unerring aim.' My honour is lost, and with it my future career. I must leave the army, my comrades disdaining to serve with me! I am poor, Fräulein Schommer. You, rolling in luxury, have no conception of what it means to be poor. Having left the service, I must accept any, even the meanest, position that can insure me sufficient income to maintain a wretched existence, if indeed I do not have recourse to a bullet through my brains to end a life that has been such a wretched failure. This is my future if I fulfil your request. To-day the world stands open to me. The highest honours that crown a military career may be mine. In a few years I shall be captain and in a condition to offer my hand, without exposing myself to the charge of mercenary motives, to the lovely girl to whom I long since gave my whole heart. These hopes you ask me to destroy with my own hand; for how could I, a beggar, degraded in my own eyes and those of the world, ever venture to aspire to one heaped with all that can make life desirable? I should, and justly, be repulsed with scorn. Have you a right to require this sacrifice of me? I have given you my promise, and if you require it I will keep it, for there is nothing that you can ask which I will not perform, but before I do so, before you ask the sacrifice of my entire future, you must know what are the delicious hopes which you thus annihilate. It is you, Eva Schommer, whom I have loved passionately from the first moment when my eyes were gladdened by the sight of you. I have religiously concealed this love, for what right had a poor dragoon to reveal it? The thought that you might suppose I wooed you for your wealth, and not for your sweet self alone, would have driven me frantic. Therefore I was silent; therefore I curbed the wild desires of my heart. I resolved to wait until with, increase of rank I could offer you a position not unworthy of you. Yes, Eva, I love you with an intensity of which you cannot dream, and hence my right to step forth as the champion of your honour; hence the wound I felt when you so harshly rebuked my presumption. It is but just that I should tell you all this. Now decide my fate; it is in your hands. Ask of me my life, or, what is infinitely more dear to me, my honour, I will sacrifice everything to you."
He ceased, and awaited Eva's reply. Possessed of histrionic talent by no means contemptible, conscious that this was a decisive moment in his life, he was really agitated; and this agitation lent to his words and manner an appearance of reality that could not but impress Eva with a belief in their sincerity. As he spoke, she grew very pale; she was not surprised,--she had long foreseen with annoyance that she should some day be obliged distinctly to reject his proffered affection; and yet she had not looked for a declaration of it just at this time.
What should she say to him? Had she a right to require of him the sacrifice of his entire future? And yet, if she did not do it, this terrible duel, sure to end in the death of one of the combatants, would inevitably take place. It was her sacred duty to prevent this. Bertram had given her a glimpse of a way in which the right to ask him to relinquish his entire future would be hers.
Sacrifice for sacrifice! Her heart seemed to cease beating at the thought. Never had the handsome dragoon been so utterly detestable to her as when he was pouring forth his glowing assurances of affection. But could she hesitate to sacrifice herself? Two human lives depended upon her decision. And what did she resign? A happy future? No! None such could be hers with this curse of wealth cleaving to her. What did it matter in the end whether she gave the hand so coveted to Bertram or to another? were not all her wooers alike indifferent to her? They all coveted her millions, and set no store by the poor girlish heart hungering and thirsting for true affection. Bertram was no worse than the rest; perhaps somewhat better,--at least he was willing to make a sacrifice for her. Certainly his protestations of love had seemed genuine.
And yet, another image would rise before her mental vision,--was there then one to whom she was not so entirely indifferent,--one lost to her forever? Fie! she would not think of him: he was her enemy; he hated and despised her, although he hardly knew her.
"Is there no other way, no honourable way, in which this duel can be avoided without imperilling your future?" Eva asked; her mind was already half made up to sacrifice herself, but she hesitated to say the fatal word.
"None."