“And yet it must be a blessed thing,” exclaimed he, “a very blessed thing, amid pealing music, arm-in-arm with one’s beloved, to be able to dance life away, and to sink bleeding before her feet!”
“And yet only to see that she would dance with a new one!” said Sophie.
“No, no!” exclaimed Otto, “that you could not do! that you will not do! O Sophie, if you knew!”—He approached her still nearer, bent his head toward her, and his eye had twofold fire and expression in it.
“You must come with us and see the cats!” said the Kammerjunker, and sprang in between them.
“Yes, it is charming!” said Sophie. “You will have an opportunity, Mr. Thostrup, of moralizing over the perishableness of female beauty!”
“In the evening, when we drive home together,” thought Otto to himself consolingly, “in the mild summer-evening no Kammerjunker will disturb me. It must, it shall be decided! Misfortune might subject the wildness of childhood, but it gave me confidence, it never destroyed my independence; Love has made me timid,—has made me weak. May I thereby win a bride?”
Gravely and with a dark glance he followed after Sophie and her guide.
CHAPTER XL
“In vain his beet endeavors were;
Dull was the evening, and duller grew.”—LUDOLF SCHLEF.
“Seest thou how its little life
The bird hides in the wood?
Wilt thou be my little wife—
Then do it soon. Good!
—A bridegroom am I.”—Arion.