Cäcilie triumphed when she heard the news from Olga. "She is the right one, now at last you have found her," said she, as she shook Wegen's hand heartily. The intelligence spread rapidly, like quicksilver, amongst those present. A betrothed! Fräulein Baute's entire school becomes excited. A lover--for the first-class in a girl's school, that is the loftiest position upon earth to which a man can attain. Every eve of St. Sylvester they cast him in lead, and yet nothing can be done with such a leaden lover, a lover of the future.
Iduna, with her companions, one after another, glided past the chair in order to get a closer view of the marvel.
"It is, indeed, remarkable," said Lori to Dr. Sperner, who sat beside her and drank to her in a glass of mulled ale; "in Neukuhren people believed that he was as good as engaged to Cäcilie, he accompanied her upon the piano--and that is always the beginning. But he appears to have made a mistake then; this Olga is the right major chord. Upon the whole, I consider such feeling about rather tactless. Herr von Wegen is no Don Juan by profession like the other. I believe he allows himself to be married, and Cäcilie, who holds the first mortgage upon him, has given him notice, because he--did not offer sufficiently good security."
At the same time Lori made a gesture of explanation. Dr. Sperner knew how, by ringing laughter, to do honour to the schoolmistress' hint. What an amount of genius she concealed in her little head!
"But the other?" asked the Doctor, as he stroked his moustache complacently, "where is her first mortgage now?"
"On a spot, which alas! is even more insecure! If a suit be opened upon Dr. Kuhl's heart, then every unhappy creditor, or much rather female creditor, will have to content herself with very little payment."
"But I do not understand how a young lady can be so thoughtless."
"They should be cut, propriety requires it, nothing else is left for us."
At that moment Cäcilie passed by; she greeted them pleasantly, but her bow was scarcely returned by Lori, while Doctor Sperner looked defiantly at her, a bold smile upon his lips, and only nodded his head slightly.
Her sister's engagement cast her far into the shade, people gave her to understand that her free behaviour would no longer be tolerated in society. Major Bern's wife did not press her to sit down, although Banquo's ghost might have been obliged to sit either on the right or left hand, and the Frau Kanzleiräthin wrapped herself disapprovingly in her red shawl when Cäcilie addressed her, and was so chary of her words, that her friends looked anxiously at her as if she had been suddenly taken ill, because only shortly before she had gathered together the sluices of her eloquence, to pour out an overwhelming flood of language. Even Minna, who was still unmarried, and in spite of that fact had forfeited none of her good nature--fat Minna, who had already in all dancing parties long since belonged to the female land-sturm, and was only called out when no one else could be mobilised--did not talk to Cäcilie without a certain timidity, as if contact with so adventuresome a beauty might injure her good character, and frighten away some wooer, although for years already none had appeared on her horizon.