When it grew evening, the Mother and Aunt set out with Roland and Manna towards the villa, Manna walking with the Aunt, and Roland with the Professorin. On the way Eric met them.
"At last!" cried Roland. "Now, Manna, here he is; here you have him."
Manna and Eric exchanged formal bows.
"Why don't you speak? Have you both lost your tongue? Eric, this is my sister Manna; Manna, this is my friend, my brother, my Eric."
"Don't be excited, Roland," said Eric, and there was a ringing tone in his voice that made Manna involuntarily raise her eyes to him. "Yes, Fräulein, this is the second time I have met you in the twilight."
Manna almost began to say that she had seen him once in broad daylight, when she had not spoken to him, but had heard inspiring notes from him; but she checked herself and pressed her lips together. Roland broke the pause that ensued, by saying urgently:—
"Come into the house; then you will see one another by lamplight. It is just a year ago, this hour, since I ran away; can it be only a year? Ah, Manna, you cannot imagine how many hundred years I have lived through in this one. I am as old as the hills, as old as that laughing Sprite the groom told me about."
He repeated the story to his two willing listeners. When he had ended, Eric announced his intention of staying till the next day with his mother, for every one who was not a blood relation was a stranger at such a time as this. Roland would hear nothing of his being a stranger, but Manna's eyes as they gleamed in the darkness seemed to grow larger.
At the new gateway the party divided, Roland and his sister going to the villa, and Eric returning to the green cottage with his mother and aunt. For the second time he had seen Manna, and for the second time she had seemed nothing but eyes.
How strange that this man should look like the picture of Saint Anthony, thought Manna, when she was alone in her room; there seemed to me no point of resemblance between them; some passing look of his, an expression of his eyes, must have reminded Roland of the picture; she too had seen nothing of Eric but his tall figure and his eyes.