Eugen cast down his eyes.
"I thought," said he, hesitating after a pause, "I thought I would not tell her anything at present. She is going away again this evening, and next week I shall leave for Italy with you. From then I thought of gradually loosening the tie--"
"Gradually loosening the tie--well, I'm waiting to hear the next."
The young painter seemed to be becoming more and more uncomfortable under his friend's steadfast glance.
"I do not wish to wound Gertrud by allowing her to know of my relations with Antonie," said he hastily. "She may think that reasons of another kind, losses or unfortunate circumstances, oblige me to break off the connection. I have already hinted at something of the sort. It will be easier to explain by letter, and from a distance--you can understand that I wish to spare her as much as possible."
"Spare her? Then why will you torment the girl for weeks, perhaps months, with uncertainty as to her future, and anxiety about you? You intend to spare her by giving her the poison by drops, and, after you have attracted to yourself all the womanly anxiety and tenderness she is capable of, you will give her the boundless humiliation of hearing that her fiancé, whom she imagines in the depths of need and despair, is the chosen spouse of the rich Countess Arnau, is about to make one of the most brilliant matches in the country. Rather an odd way of sparing her!"
Eugen looked at him in great astonishment.
"Why, Hermann, what has taken you today? You have quite altered your views!"
"My views have nothing to do with it, the question is, whether you were in earnest in what you said."
The young man was silent.