"No, that would have had no charm for me. I detest nothing so much as constraint, and it is impossible in such expeditions to preserve one's personal freedom. One is bound by the rules of the expedition, by the wishes of one's companions, by all sorts of things, and I am wont to follow my own will only."
"Ah, indeed?" A half-contemptuous smile played about Wolfgang's lips. "I beg pardon; I really thought you had gone to Africa as a scientific pioneer."
"Good heavens, how in earnest you are about everything, Herr Elmhorst!" Waltenberg said, with a scarcely perceptible sneer. "Must life perforce be labour? I never coveted fame as an explorer; I have enjoyed the freedom and beauty of the world, and have renewed my youth and strength in quaffing long draughts of such enjoyment. To put it to positive use would destroy its romance for me."
Elmhorst shrugged his shoulders, and remarked, with apparent indifference, in which there was nevertheless a spice of insolence, "Certainly a most convenient way of arranging one's existence. And yet hardly to my taste, and quite impossible for most people. So to live one should be born to great wealth."
"No, not of necessity," Waltenberg retorted, in the same tone. "Some lucky chance may endow one with wealth."
Wolfgang looked annoyed, and he was evidently about to make a sharp reply, when Erna, perceiving this, hastened to give the conversation another turn.
"I fear my uncle must resign all hope of making you at home among us," said she. "You are so entirely under the spell of your tropical world, that everything here will seem petty and meagre to you. I hardly think that even our mountains could move you to admiration, but there you will find me a determined antagonist."
Waltenberg turned towards her,--perhaps he saw in her face, or was conscious himself, that he had gone too far. "You do me injustice, Fräulein Thurgau," he replied. "I have never forgotten the Alpine world of my native country,--its lofty summits, its deep-blue lakes, and the lovely creations of its legends by which it is peopled,--creatures"--his voice sounded veiled--"compounded as it were of air and Alpine snow, with the white fairy-like flowers of its waters crowning their fair hair."
The compliment was too bold, but the manner in which it was uttered took from it all presumption, as the speaker's eyes rested in admiration upon the beautiful girl before him in her white, misty ball-dress.
"Alice, are you rested?" Wolfgang asked, aloud. "We really ought not to remain away from the other room so long. Let us go back."