"Renounce?" asked she softly, with dropped eyelids. But a world of encouragement lay in the tone, "and why?"
"You ask me? May I dare, then, to woo you? I am poor, you know it. I have nothing but my art. You stand so high, your position in life is so brilliant--"
His glance, resting with burning passion upon the beautiful woman's face, contradicted these words of renunciation. She looked up and smiled.
"And I am free, Eugen, quite free! You had forgotten that!
"Antonie!"
He rushed passionately to her feet.
"Give me the hope, give me the certainty, that I may one day win you, and I will break my chain, cost what it may. Tell me, that you will be mine, in spite of your name, in spite of your family, and I will burst all bonds asunder, and win happiness, if need be, by force!"
Antonie bent down to her kneeling lover, love plainly to be seen in her eyes--she was, indeed, wonderfully beautiful at this moment.
"I fear no bonds. I know by experience how empty splendour and riches can make life, in a marriage where there is no love. Free yourself, cultivate your genius, and then, when your first work has won you an artist's fame,--then come and fetch the prize of victory!"