"Why did you look at me so from head to foot, pouring forth in that gaze your whole soul with a world of grief and joy, as a blossoming tree showers its flowers on the passer-by? Surely not on account of a woman's face, though it may be passably fair, but because you felt that I perceived the Christ in you and that it was He for whom I came. Your glance meant to tell me: 'It is I whom you are seeking!' and I believe you. And when at last the promise was fulfilled and the long sought redeemer stood before me, was it by chance that his prophetic eye discovered me among the thousands of faces when he said: 'But in many hearts day will soon dawn!' Did you not seek me, as we look for a stranger to whom we must fulfill a promise given on the journey?"
Freyer now raised his dark eyes and fixed them full upon her, but made no reply.
"And is it true that you came yesterday, only because Ludwig wished it, you who, spite of all entreaties, have kept ladies who had the world at their feet waiting on your stairs for hours? Did you not come because you suspected that I might be the woman with whom, since that meeting, you had had some incomprehensible spiritual bond?"
Freyer covered his eyes with his hand, as if he was afraid more might be read in them.
"Be truthful, Herr Freyer, it is unworthy of you and of me to play a conventional farce. I am compelled to act so many in my life that I would fain for once be frank, as mortal to mortal! Tell me simply, have I judged correctly--yes or no?"
"Yes!" whispered Freyer, without looking up.
She gently drew his hand down. "And to-day--to-day--did you come merely out of gratitude for your cousin?" she questioned with the archness of her increasing certainty of happiness.
He caught the little hand with which she had clasped his, and raised it ardently to his lips; then, as if startled that he had allowed himself to be carried so far, he flung back his raven locks as if they had deluded his senses, and pushed his chair farther away in order not to be again led into temptation. She did not interfere--she knew that he was in her power--struggle as he might, the dart was fixed. Yet the obstacles she had to conquer were great and powerful. Coquetry would be futile, only the moral force of a genuine feeling could cope with them, and of this she was conscious, with a happiness never felt before. Again she searched her own heart, and her rapid glance wandered from the thorn-scarred brow of the wonderful figure before her, to pierce the depths of her own soul. Her love for him was genuine, she was not toying with his heart; she wished, like Mary Magdalene, to sanctify herself in his love. But she was the Magdalene in the first stage. Had Christ been a man, and attainable like this man, what transformations the Penitent's heart must have undergone, ere its fires wrought true purification.
"Herr Freyer," the countess began in a low, eager tone, "you said yesterday that it troubled you when people showed you idolatrous reverence and you felt that you thereby robbed your Master. Can we give aught to any earthly being without giving it to God?"
Freyer listened intently.