The Consul cautioned him laughingly with his finger.
"Do not scoff, Captain; rather protect your own heart against these rays. To you, young gentleman, such things are most dangerous. You would not be the first who had succumbed to the magic of those eyes."
The young sailor laughed confidently.
"And who says then, Herr Consul, that I fear such a fate? I always succumb in such cases with the greatest pleasure, and the consolatory knowledge that the magic is only dangerous for him who flees it. Whoever stands firm, is generally soon disenchanted, often sooner than he wishes."
"It appears you have had great experience already in such affairs," said Frau Erlau, with a touch of reproof.
"My God, Madame, when year after year one flies from country to country, and never takes root anywhere, is nowhere so much at home as on the rolling, ever-moving sea, one learns to look upon constant change as inevitable, and at last to love it. I expose myself entirely to your displeasure with this confession, but I must really beg of you to look upon me as a savage, who has long forgotten, in tropical seas and countries, how to satisfy the requirements of North German civilisation."
Yet the manner in which the young Captain bowed and kissed the lady's hand as he spoke, betrayed a sufficient acquaintance with these requirements, and Dr. Welding remarked, drily, as he turned to the Consul--
"The tropical barbarism of this gentleman will not distinguish itself very badly in our drawing-rooms. So the hero of the much talked of 'Hansa' affair is really the brother of the young Almbach to whom Signora Biancona is just now according an interview in the assembly-room?"
"Whom? Reinhold Almbach?" asked Erlau, astonished. "You heard just now that he is not here."
"Certainly not, according to the Herr Captain's views," said Welding, quietly. "According to mine, he positively is. Pray do not mention it! To-night's concert seems intended to bring us some surprise. I have a certain suspicion, and we shall see if it be well-founded or not. The Signora likes theatrical effects, even off the stage; everything must be unexpected, lightning-like, overwhelming; a prosaic announcement would spoil everything. The conductor is, of course, in the plot, but was not so easily persuaded. We shall await it."