"Cäcilie, my sister Cäcilie--"
"What about her?"
"She is going to be married."
"Impossible!"
"It has become very possible since this morning, yes, almost certain."
Kuhl sprang from the sofa and walked up and down the room several times.
"She is a faithless woman--I have known it for long--a calculating nature! She is not capable of grasping life in the spirit and in truth; she is a Philistine maiden, a Dalilah, and betrays me to the Philistines! Her home is there where cooking pots bubble on the domestic hearth; it is a pity, with such a mind! Of what use is the pure flame of oxygen when it only serves to make old iron rusty? But why do I wonder? Is it not an old tale; all I have to do is to enquire the name of the happy man."
"Herr Baron von Wegen has asked her hand to-day."
"And she has accepted?"
"Not quite irrevocably as yet; but she will--accept--I do not doubt it! And why should she hesitate? He is an honourable, handsome man; one's heart opens when one hears him speak. He is wealthy and a man of position, and I believe that Cäcilie thinks something of belonging to the nobility--it is a matter of indifference to me."