"Is not a certain kind of self-possession only a form of embarrassment?" asked Felix, shyly.
But Erwin evidently has no inclination to be lenient to Linda's faults. He suspects the approach of something which must shatter Felix's undermined existence, and seeks a means of meeting it.
"You, perhaps, do not even think her pretty," says Felix, vexedly, hesitating.
"Pretty, no; but dazzlingly beautiful. It is a pity that she has parents who, with all their perversity, are yet so respectable," says Erwin with unmistakable emphasis.
Then Felix bursts out: "It is not only horrible, but absolutely indecent to speak of a girl with whom, by your own account, you have spoken for scarcely ten minutes, in such a repulsive manner." And as his brother-in-law, astonished at such an unusual outbreak from Felix, yet looks at him without the slightest harshness or coldness, the "certain Lanzberg" grows red and murmurs, "Pardon that I ventured to reprove you."
Erwin clenches his fist and opens it again with the gesture of a man who has conquered a painful excitement.
Such feelings often came over him in intercourse with his brother-in-law, although he felt great pity and much sympathy for the good, shy fellow; but his association with him was never wholly free, open, but always contained a tinge of sympathetic politeness, and there was never that warm abruptness which is a healthy symptom of manly friendship. Sad yielding on one side; on the other good-natured advances. This, after a half year's acquaintance, was the relation of the two brothers-in-law. One must--alas! it could not be otherwise--treat Felix as a precious but broken and only artificially mended cup of Sèvres porcelain.
"Why does my opinion of the Harfinks interest you?" asks Erwin, now going straight to his object.
For a while there is perfect silence, only animated by the soft voices of the night, and the fluttering of a moth which has wandered behind the tall shade of the garden lamp and has been singed.
"Erwin!" cries Felix, his hands convulsively clasped, in his large feverish eyes a look such as Erwin had only once before seen, and then in a dying man's who suddenly longed to live. "Do you think that a man like me has a right to marry?"