The Candidate followed Elise everywhere with glances of devotion, and appeared this evening perfectly enchanted by her amiability.
"Fie, for shame!—to take all the confections to yourself!" moralised the little Queen-bee to the little S——ne,—a fat, quiet boy, who took the confections and the reproof with the same stoical indifference. Louise cast a look of high indignation upon him, and then gave her share of sweetmeats to a little girl, who complained that she had had none.
Supper came, and Emelie, whose eyes flashed unusual fire, seemed to wish fervently to win back that regard which she, perhaps, feared to have lost already, and with her playful and witty conversation electrified the whole company. Jacobi, who was excited in no ordinary manner, drank one glass of wine after another, talked and laughed very loud, and looked between whiles upon Elise with glances which expressed his sentiments in no doubtful manner. These glances were not the first of the kind which the quick eye of Elise's rival observed.
"That young man," said she, in a low but significant whisper to the Judge, and with a glance on Jacobi, "seems to be very charming; he has really remarkably attractive talents—is he nearly related to Elise?"
"No," returned he, looking at her rather surprised; "but he has been for nearly three months a member of our family."
"Indeed!" said she, in a significant and grave manner; "I should have thought—but as for that," added she, in an apparently careless tone—"Elise is really so kind and so amiable, that for him who is with her daily, it must be very difficult not to love her."
The Judge felt the sting of the viper, and with a glance which flashed a noble indignation, he replied to his beautiful neighbour, "You are right, Emelie; I know no woman who deserves more love or esteem than she!"
Emelie bit her lip and grew pale; and she would assuredly have grown yet paler, could she only have understood the sentiment which she had awakened in the breast of her former admirer.
Ernst Frank had a keen sense of moral meanness, and when this displayed itself no gifts of genius or of nature had power to conceal it. He clearly understood her intentions, and despised her for them. In his eyes, at this moment, she was hateful. In the mean time his composure was destroyed. He looked on Jacobi, and observed his glances and his feelings; he looked on Elise, and saw that she was uneasy, and avoided his eye.
A horrible spasmodic feeling thrilled through his soul; in order to conceal what he felt he became more than usually animated, yet there was a something hostile, a something sternly sarcastic in his words, which still, on account of the general gaiety, remained unobserved by most.