Clodwig gently closed his eyes, nodded, and then opened them again.
"Oh, yes," she continued, more calmly, "I am glad that I remember a question which I wished to put to you. Tell me, what would Cicero or Socrates have said, on reading Lord Byron's 'Cain'?" Eric looked at her with a puzzled air. This question was so extravagantly odd, that he did not know whether it was intended as a sneer, or whether she was insane. Bella, however, went on:—
"Has Roland ever yet read Byron's 'Cain'?"
"I believe not."
"Give him the book now. It must have an effect upon him. He, too, is a son, who has a right to revolt at his father's banishment from Eden. It is wonderful, the correspondence between the two stories,—is it not? Do you know that we are all, strictly speaking, children of Cain? Abel was childless; yes, the pious Abel had no children: we are all descended from Cain. A grand pedigree! One more question, dear Herr Doctor, Have you never got out of the savants the form and color of the mark branded on Cain's brow by God the Father?"
"I do not understand you," Eric answered,
"Neither do I understand myself," laughed Bella, It was a dismal laugh.
She then continued:—
"I began to read Cicero, 'De Summo Bono,' with the help of a translation, of course; but I did not get far, and took up Byron's 'Cain,' instead: that is the finest thing the modern world has produced."
Eric still know not what to reply, and only gazed into the faces of Bella and Clodwig. "What is going on here?" he said to himself.