Frank said nothing. He moved on in silence toward the weather-cross.
"I have accidentally discovered a singular custom of your 'angel,' doctor. There is at the weather-cross a Madonna of stone. Angela has imposed upon herself the singular task of adorning this Madonna, daily, with fresh flowers."
"You are a profane fellow, Richard. You should not speak in such a derisive tone of actions which are the out-flowings of pious sentiment."
"Every one has his hobby. What will not people do through ambition? I know ladies who torture a piano for half the night, in order to catch the tone of the prima-donna at the opera. I know women who undergo all possible privations to be able to wear as fine clothes, as costly furs, as others with whom they are in rivalry. This exhaustive night-singing, these deprivations, are submitted to through foolish vanity. Perhaps Angela is not less ambitious and vain than others of her sex. As she cannot dazzle these country folk with furs or toilette, she dazzles their religious sentiment by ostentatious piety."
"Radically false!" said the doctor. "Charity and virtue are recognized and honored not only in the country, but also in the cities. Why do not your coquettes strive for this approval? Because they want Angela's nobility of soul. And again, why should Angela wish to gain the admiration of the peasants? She is the daughter of the wealthiest man in the neighborhood. If such was her object, she could gratify her ambition in a very different way."
"Then Angela is a riddle to me," returned Richard. "I cannot conceive the motives of her actions."
"Which are so natural! The maiden follows the impulses of her own noble nature, and these impulses are developed and directed by Christian culture, and convent education. Angela was a long time with the nuns, and only returned home two years ago. Here you have the very natural solution of the riddle."
"Are you acquainted with the Siegwart family?"
"No; what I know of Angela I learned from the people of Salingen."
They arrived at the platform. Klingenberg stood silent for some time admiring the landscape. The view did not seem to interest Richard. His eyes rested on Angela's home, whose white walls, surrounded by vineyards and corn-fields, glistened in the sun.