‘The world is a hard place—’
‘Then why have anything to do with it? I have been happy, here in the forest, for so many years—could you not be happy here with me?’
‘I should still be my father’s son—I should still be Greifenstein.’
‘Would I have you anything else?’
‘Hilda, it is impossible!’ cried Greif with suddenly renewed energy. ‘I have said all. Must I say it again?’ ‘If you were to say it a thousand times, it would not make it more true. But I will listen to all you tell me, if you like.’
With a calmness that showed how certain she felt of her victory, Hilda resumed her seat at the opposite side of the fireplace, folded her hands together, and leaning her head against the back of the easy-chair, watched him with half-closed eyes. She was not tired, and would very probably be able to sustain the contest longer than he. After the first shock of the announcement was over, under which she had suffered more in one moment than would have sufficed to fill a week with agonising pain, the strong impulse to hold him had come upon her and her elastic strength had been roused to its fullest energy. But the memory of that one moment of agony was enough to make her guess what she would feel if he left her.
Arguments repeated a second time rarely seem so forcible as when they are first heard. Painfully and conscientiously Greif recapitulated his reasons, trying to speak coldly and concisely, exerting himself to the utmost and summoning all the skill he could command in order to state his case convincingly. Hilda could not have put the idea that possessed him to a more cruel test than this. It began to dawn even upon himself that he was in pursuit of a chimera, and the necessity for the enormous self-sacrifice, upon which he insisted, was breaking down in the face of such a determined opposition on the part of those who were more interested than himself. Doggedly and persistently he continued, nevertheless, fighting his love as though it had been a devil, thrusting Hilda’s from his thoughts as though it had been an evil temptation, savagely determined not to part with his belief in what he took for his duty. It was a strange sight, and would have afforded material for reflexion to an older and wiser person than Hilda.
‘That is all I have to say,’ he concluded. ‘It seems to me that I cannot say it more clearly. You know what it costs me to repeat it all.’
An expression of intense pain passed over his face, and he turned away in order to hide it from Hilda. He was hardly able to make his strained lips pronounce the last words.
‘I am not convinced,’ said Hilda after a moment’s pause. ‘No eloquence in the world would convince me that you and I should sacrifice our lives for an idea, merely to save ourselves from the possibility of a few ill-natured remarks hereafter. That is all it comes to in the end. I will tell you the history of this idea.’