"Only because I know that I must die soon, as you all say that I think the world so beautiful only because I am blind. And when my dear father is gone, whom shall I have to live for?"
"For your friends--myself, for example; for Justus, whom you love, and who loves you."
"Who loves me?" The blind girl's sweet mouth quivered. She drew two or three deep breaths, but the tears would not be kept back; they streamed from the poor blind eyes, and trickled through the slender white fingers with which she tried to hide them.
"Cilli! Cilli! what is the matter?" exclaimed Reinhold, seized with a painful foreboding.
"Nothing, nothing," murmured the blind girl. "You see yourself that I am ill--very ill. Hark! whose is that strange step in the courtyard?" Reinhold looked up and recognised Philip, who came rapidly along the walk in search of him without looking into the arbour. He could not bear the idea of being found here by Philip at this moment, he must therefore make up his mind to leave Cilli, who herself implored him to go.
"Leave me! leave me! before you I am not ashamed of my tears. You alone may see me weep." It was high time. Philip had already turned back and came towards him.
"Where the devil have you been? I have been looking for you in your room, and all over the place."
"Your interview with your father cannot have lasted long." Philip laughed bitterly.
"As if it were possible to talk to him! But I swear this shall be the last time. No man in the world would endure it if he were a hundred times his father." Philip was furious; he stormed at his father's blindness and obstinacy. From what he could gather about the course of the interview, Reinhold could not quite justify his uncle, but he could not let pass the outrageous expressions of which the angry man made use.
"Are you going to begin now?" exclaimed Philip. "It is partly your fault. All that the old man said was only what you said to me yourself yesterday. What in the world induced you to set him against a project of which neither of you understand a word? He, in spite of his knowledge of business; you, in spite of your seamanship. What does it signify to you whether the harbour is east or north? Whether it is choked up in one place or goes to the devil in the other? Do you intend to invest your money in it? If others wish to do so, let them. Every one can use his own eyes, and if he comes to grief it is his own look-out. The best of it is that none of you who set your faces against it can hinder the matter from coming to a conclusion; in fact, it is as good as concluded now. Count Golm has joined the Provisional Board; and it would be a good joke if a harbour on the east were decided upon, and Golm and the daughter of our principal opponent, General Werben, who is as obstinate as my father--good heavens! there is young Werben! I hope he did not hear!" This conversation had taken place while they walked up and down between the blocks of marble in the courtyard. Ottomar had learnt at the house from Grollman that Reinhold was in the courtyard, and now came suddenly towards him from behind one of the blocks. He had heard nothing, although Reinhold feared at first that he had from his gloomy and embarrassed air. But his handsome young face cleared the next minute; he held out his hand to him with the greatest cordiality, and then to Philip with less cordiality.