"Now do you speak, dear Clodwig."
Clodwig hesitatingly expressed his wish to have Eric live with him. Sonnenkamp's sharp glance fell upon Bella. The forefinger of his left hand was already raised in playful menace against her, and he was on the point of saying, "I understand you," when he checked himself, and, laying his finger on his lips, said:—
"I am glad to see that our Herr Eric"—with a peculiar emphasis on the word "our"—"that our Herr Eric stands so high in your good graces."
Eric was struck by the peculiar stress laid upon the word "our." He seemed to have become a piece of property. Still more surprised was he at Sonnenkamp's offering him his hand the next moment and saying:—
"You remain ours, do you not?"
Eric bowed.
Bella dwelt, with intentional emphasis, upon the particulars of her visit to Eric's mother in the University-town. She evidently desired to let Herr Sonnenkamp know that a man of Eric's rank and position was not to be crushed on account of a trifling act of neglect. Sonnenkamp whistled to himself inaudibly, as if some plan were ripening in him.
Bella contrived again to be alone with Eric, and expressed to him her satisfaction at the success of her little plot. She knew, she said, that Sonnenkamp would not let him go, but she also knew that he would humble him on account of the neglect he had been guilty of, and therefore persuaded Clodwig to drive over at once. Eric was full of gratitude.
"Did you notice," she asked in a low voice, "what a look Herr Sonnenkamp gave me, and how he raised his finger at me? This man imagines that our friendship is something more than friendship; to the impure nothing is pure. I think you will not misunderstand me, if I sometimes intentionally slight you in the presence of this spying knave."
She gave Eric her hand, and held his long and tightly pressed. Neither suspected that from behind a bush two eyes were fixed upon them, and a sharp ear heard their every word. When they had passed on, Sonnenkamp drew a deep breath as a relief from the long constraint he had put upon himself.