Chlodwig gave a start. “Yes, Your Royal Highness.”
“The lady interests me very much. Can you tell me anything of her story?”
Helmer told him what he knew: the secluded childhood and youth with her father who was in slender circumstances; her worship of that father; the summons to the grandfather’s home; the fabulous inheritance; and then her passionate desire to accomplish some great work, to offer herself up in the service of her fellow-men—as if an atonement for the unearned wealth; then her career and its results.
“A remarkable fortune!” exclaimed Victor Adolph. “You were her teacher?”
“I? Her teacher?”
“Yes, she told me so herself.”
“She meant that when she was as yet uncertain how she might find the great thing which she dreamed of doing, I gave her some advice.”
“And has not this pretty young woman had any love-affair in the course of her life?”
“I know of none.”
“Is she so cold? She must have had many suitors.”