"But you have much influence over her! We will offer her consolation and compensation. May she console herself with Schiller--
'The mean world loves to darken what is bright;'
then Heine's verses will become true--
'And a new-born song spring softly
From the heal'd heart shoots to-morrow.'
"I am fond of quoting, Herr von Blanden, it is an act of disinterested love of truth; our cultivation consists entirely in half unconscious or unguaranteed quotations. Why not declare openly that Bartel knows on which side his bread is buttered?"
As Salomon began to diverge--a known peculiarity of the versatile talented youth--one of the seniors, whose face, rendered purple by many a cut and thrust, bore artistic marks of kind friends legibly sketched upon it, assumed the reins of the transaction with a firm hand.
"Let the Signora appear, we will protect her! If that clique venture forth once more, we will reply to their second brutal blow with fitting tierce and quart, so that their ears shall tingle."
"I repeat," said Blanden, "that I am very grateful to you, but I cannot even support your wish."
"Why not?" asked Salomon, dissatisfied with the meagre results of his eloquence.
"I do not wish that my betrothed shall be again exposed to the storms of public opinion; I will guide her into a safe haven. The laurels of the European capitals will console her for this small defeat; even for Signora Bollini's laurels, may Frau von Blanden long no more, she will belong to quite another world, and I wish that too violent equinoctial gales should not accompany her to this change in her life, so that she may be able calmly to prepare herself for it. But this, of course, is only my opinion, I shall not interfere at all with my betrothed's resolutions, and she will in any case rejoice at your warm sympathy, and the honor which you intend for her."