"I meant to say, also through your cleverness; or, if you prefer it, through the cool, unimpassioned frame of mind which you have grown into, and which I often envy you!"
Bertram looked up in amazement, and then quickly busied himself with his tea-cup. Hildegard, to envy him his coolness! Hildegard, who had ever appeared to him the very embodiment of conscious equanimity!
"You may be surprised to hear this from me," she continued; "but must we not all, sooner or later, learn the lesson of resignation? And my time surely has come. Indeed, it has been so all my life. What have not I had to resign in the course of my life! Or do you think that the husband's wealth can blind the wife, if she be proud, to the consciousness that she is not loved as she longs, and as, may be, she deserves to be loved?"
Bertram knew these phrases from of old; but he said to himself that to-day particularly he must make the best of everything, so he exclaimed--
"Is it possible, my friend, that you still cherish this hypochondriacal fear which you have given utterance to before, but from which I deemed you cured long ago? How can you complain of a deficiency in love, when your husband positively adores you? You can utter no wish, simply because what you could wish for is already fulfilled. Or you need but have a wish, and it is forthwith fulfilled."
"You are pleading for the friend of your youth," she made answer, raising her dark eyebrows. "Do not forget this: I am bringing no charge against him. I am resigned. Were I to die to-day, what would his loss come to? What would he miss?"
"The brightness of his life," Bertram replied gallantly.
"As if he cared for the brightness of his life!" said his wife. "Is it so? Does he share one of my fancies, my harmless penchants? Does he not vainly strive to appear interested in the things of beauty with which I love to surround, myself and to decorate our dwelling? Did he not consent wit evident repugnance to have the mansion-house restored in a style befitting a whilom princely residence--to let me seek out and renew the old, tangled paths through the Park? Does he support me in my humane undertakings? Have I not had to beg the few thousand thalers from him that I required for my Kindergarten and for my poorhouse? Why, he lives solely for his porcelain factory, his sugar refinery, his coal-mines, his new railway project! I say again: I have accepted all this as inevitable, and as a matter of course, as long as I alone was concerned, as long as I alone suffered. But, indeed, to bring Erna into this life of trivialities, to leave the dear child in a sphere where she sees nothing, hears nothing, that could give the slightest nourishment to head or heart, where anything and everything revolves round Mammon, is sacrificed to Mammon--that is beyond me, beyond my strength!"
"Then, if I understand you aright, you wish, to get Erna married?"
Through the soft, velvety radiance of the deep-brown eyes flashed something like a deeper light. The question was evidently not expected--at least not yet--but the next moment already her eyes had resumed their customary expression, and she forced those beautiful lips to smile, as she said, in a tone of gentle reproach--