"All are, women and girls, each in her own manner. I think she will make fun of me and my views. Yesterday I called her to account for her response to Herr von Wegen, and she excused herself with the most charming grace. She quite shared my views; life is much too rich to be able to restrict oneself; besides, nothing is so ridiculous as jealousy. She likes me much, but only on her intellectual days; therefore, for her foolish days, of which she experiences many now, she has sought out Herr von Wegen. And, at the same time, she smiled so politely, and made me such a pretty curtsey."
Blanden could not suppress loud merriment at this communication.
"She beats you with your own weapons."
"Laugh away! It drives me to despair! Who can explain to such a sprite, in solemn earnest, what a great difference exists between man and woman in restriction of the affections?"
"Nor would that be so easy."
"Simple as a child, I tell you, only I have no inclination to do so at present. Besides, I am curious to see how far she carries it."
"Perhaps to marriage. Our whole life is only directed towards that, and you always go groping about in an Utopia with your theories. But girls have sense and tact, and, at a certain age, they begin to freeze in the open air, and seek a shelter."
"I shall never believe that Cäcilie belongs to those everyday womanish natures; but if she be really in earnest with this Herr von Wegen, I shall know how to console myself. For a rejected lover, there is often nothing more consolatory than the thought of his successor, for if the latter belongs to tin soldiers, a man knows, too, in which box he must pack his beloved one, and that he has been much mistaken if he counted her amongst living ones. An error is always painful, but it is a pleasure to find it out; the table must be entirely cleared and laid again from the beginning."
"Do not forget that Wegen is my friend," said Blanden, seriously.
"As a friend, he may possess great merits. I appreciate his self-sacrificing zeal; but in a girl, who can be in love with him, I have been mistaken, and that is my affair. Now farewell, I must go into the sea! They are tuning the fiddles over there already. I shall get out of the way of that dilettante howling to-day."