"Of me, my dear baroness?"
"I heard so at least, from the prince."
"O, that is only one of Egon's ideas," said Hartmut, lightly. "He has taken it into his head to have my 'Arivana' brought out on the stage."
"'Arivana?' A singular title."
"It is an oriental name taken from an Indian legend, but its poetical witchery made such an impression upon me that I could not resist the temptation to create a drama from it."
"And the heroine of this drama, is she called 'Arivana?'" asked the baroness.
"No, that is only the name of a sacred place of refuge during the middle ages, upon which the scene of the drama was laid. The heroine's name is—Ada."
Rojanow spoke the name half-aloud, with a certain hesitation, and gave her a triumphant glance as he saw the same lowering of the head over the flowers as when he first spoke; he came a few steps nearer now while he continued:
"I heard the name for the first time on Indian ground, and it had for me a strangely sweet sound, so I adopted it for my character, and now I learn here that it is, in this country, but the abbreviation of a German name."
"Of Adelheid—yes. I was always called Ada in my father's house. But it is not at all remarkable that the same sounds are repeated in different languages."