“What have you been dreaming about, this last half hour?”
“Dreaming? Not at all. I have been thinking very seriously.”
“What about?”
“What about? About Goethe’s ‘Hermann and Dorothea.’”
“Ah! I thought so. You are getting on famously. Now, to begin with: where did you become acquainted with that masterpiece?”
“In a French translation, last Christmas. And I was just thinking how true it is, what the mother tells Hermann—when he is in love, you know—you remember?—about the night growing to be the better part of day——”
“Say no more. You are indulging certain thoughts about Tiefis.”
“Why not? Perfectly proper ones.”
“I might have expected this. Very well. It is a little late to-night, but I suppose we shall have to go there to-morrow. I only hope you share Hermann’s exalted sentiments and his purity of heart. Because otherwise, you understand, I could never be an accomplice to such an affair.”