All these thoughts passed through my mind as I left the rush-strewn floor of the hall where Dame Hermentrud had received me and my boys, with a lofty condescension, while, in the course of the interview, I had heard her secretly remarking to Chriemhild how unlike the cousins were; "It was quite singular how entirely the Gersdorf children were unlike the Cottas!"
But it was not until I entered Eva's lowly home, that I detected the bitter root of wounded pride from which my deep social speculations sprang. I had been avenging myself on the Schönberg-Gersdorf past by means of the Cotta-Reichenbach future. Yes; Fritz and Eva's lowly home is nobler than Chriemhild's, and richer than ours; richer and nobler just in as far as it is more lowly and more Christian!
And I learned my lesson after this manner.
"Dame Hermentrud is very proud," I said to Eva, as I returned from the castle and sat down beside her in the porch, where she was sewing; "and I really cannot see on what ground."
Eva made no reply, but a little amused smile played about her mouth, which for the moment rather aggravated me.
"Do you mean to say she is not proud, Eva?" I continued controversially.
"I did not mean to say that any one was not proud," said Eva.
"Did you mean then to imply that she has anything to be proud of?"
"There are all the ghosts of all the Gersdorfs," said Eva; "and there is the high ancestral privilege of wearing velvet and pearls, which you and I dare not assume."
"Surely," said I, "the privilege of possessing Lucas Cranach's pictures, and Albrecht Dürer's carvings, is better than that."