Johannes hesitated.
"Were they too strict?"
Johannes shook his head.
"Then what was lacking that you found elsewhere but not with them?"
"I do not know, Mijnheer, what to call it. It is not pleasure, for I am willing to endure much suffering. And yet again it is the most glorious thing I know. I think it is what is meant by 'the beautiful.'"
On saying this, he bethought himself that it was not merely "the beautiful" for which he had left his father, and that the emotion which had led him away from Markus, and which he had felt for the two little girls, might indeed be called love.
"Perhaps it is also called love," said he.
Father Canisius considered a moment, and throwing a glance at the countess, he said:
"Then did you not find the love of that good father and the good friend enough for you?"
"Oh, yes, yes," said Johannes, with spirit. "But it was from them I had learned that I ought to follow what seemed to me, in all sincerity, the most beautiful, and to do what I truly thought best."