"What is that?" he asked. "I don't know it at all."
"That is my 'Song of Songs,'" she replied, drawing a deep breath.
Never before had she mentioned its name to a living soul.
"Your 'Song of Song'?" he asked in astonishment.
And what lay before her was as clear as daylight; she would perhaps never have such a chance again. This was the moment to lay bare the secret of her youth to him.
"Put down the oars and listen, I am going to confide something to you. You may think it quite silly and ridiculous, but to me it has always been sacred."
Speechless, he shipped his oars,
"You must come and sit beside me, so that I can see your face."
His eye swept the water with a searching glance. The boat was again drifting serenely on the mirror-like bosom of the lake, which seemed to have gathered on its ripples all the throbbing blue and purple shadows of the summer night. There was not the slightest sign of danger ahead, so he obediently did as she wished.
They crouched close together at the bottom of the little craft, with their heads propped against the seat that Konrad had occupied for so long, and she told her story. She related how the legacy her poor runaway father had left behind exercised a powerful influence on her at all periods in her life.... If the years of her girlhood had been full of it, later it even attained a higher and more mysterious significance. It became, as it were, a symbol of all her efforts and actions. When her life became a whirl of useless frivolity then it was silent--sometimes for years together--but whenever her soul had an uplifting, whenever her pursuits and ideals accorded, then it came to life again. It outsang all that was low and unlovely in the world. From disgrace and wickedness outwardly it had not been able to protect her altogether, but it had at least kept her free within, and susceptible to the advent of one for whom she had unconsciously waited. And now that this one of all others had really come, she felt that the hour of fulfilment, both for herself and for her "Song of Songs," had sounded. Now it seemed that it must go forth into all the world to touch and conquer every heart and to bring its creator and herself glory and redemption.