"If you really belong to mortal beings, my Fräulein, and even to the most prosaic class of them, who are known under the name of seaside visitors--"
"Now you are right, my Herr!"
"And if you will initiate me into the secret of the point whence you commenced this solitary wandering in the wood, I will guide you to the right road."
Eva told the name of the forest-house where her friends were resting.
"Then you must confide yourself to my unwelcome companionship."
"I am grateful to you, my Herr!"
"Oh, is it not a little adventure for you to wander through this wilderness, accompanied by a gentleman, who happily no longer can be accounted a young one. I certainly have experienced adventures enough in teak and palm groves, with tigers and crocodiles, and have wandered through forests with brown and black beauties, while apes and parrots looked on enviously; but to tell the truth, this nice little adventure in the Royal Prussian chase has a greater charm for me than the encounters with beauties who shine in native brown like old mahogany."
They were now passing by the hill. The heather, which grew wild upon it, was bathed in the evening's crimson, which also flooded the quivering bowed branches of the weeping willows.
Eva did not take any notice of it; she was quite absorbed in her conversation with the stranger.
"Oh, you cannot think, my Fräulein, how a man's mind develops, not only with his wider aims, but also with his more extensive travels. So much weighed upon me; my fatherland had grown too small for me; I was a dreamer and an enthusiast; and as such, had laden myself with guilt."