She would give music lessons--she was good enough for beginners--and with the proceeds prepare herself for the stage, for which she had a decided talent.... Or perhaps it would be wiser to go in for science, to train her mind so that it might not lag behind his. She must be intellectual enough to deserve his friendship so long as he desired her to be his friend. Or--so that no harm should happen to anyone else--she would go abroad and teach German, and come back a new and regenerated woman at his summons. Or ... Ah! what? Or ... or ... lie and dream, and drain the happiness of the hour to the dregs. Exposure and death--one must entail the other--would come time enough....
The sun went down, melting into a blood-red haze. Nearness and distance were now veiled in violet mists. The whole globe seemed to be diluted into light and air, the reeds alone, with their slender black stems latticing the evening afterglow, retained an earthly corporeal form.
The foliage of the park gradually melted into a dark undefined mass. More than ever did it now seem to be a forbidden garden, filled with thrills and mysteries, sinking for ever into the unattainable.
As the boat glided along the edge of the reeds, it suddenly drifted near a blue bay, which cut like a wedge into the land on the park side, so far in that it was impossible to see where it ended. For a moment Konrad rested on his oars motionless, then he sprang to his feet with a cry of delight.
"What is it?" she asked.
"You remember we saw a stream flowing out of the park on the village side?"
"Of course I do."
"It must have flowed in somewhere, mustn't it?"
"Why, yes."
He pointed with his hand to the gleaming bay's narrowing tip.