Ernestine looked sullenly at him. "I certainly cannot answer you here; but your depreciation of me forces me to ask whether you have read anything that I have written, and so have come to form so poor an opinion of my abilities?"
"On the contrary, Fräulein Hartwich, your essay upon Reflex Motion is full of talent, and your article upon the Capacity of the Eye for Stereoscopic Vision has won the prize."
Ernestina started. Her face flushed, her eyes sparkled. "Why have you waited until now to tell me? My essay won the prize! Do I wake, or am I dreaming? Oh, how can I thank you for this intelligence? I have no words. But let your reward be the consciousness that you have given me the greatest happiness my life has ever known! And do not attempt to malign to me the man to whose disinterested care for my education I owe it."
"Poor girl, if this is your greatest happiness! You are betrayed indeed, if you owe no other enjoyment to your uncle!"
"Oh, sir, what can there be beyond fame and honour?"
Johannes looked gravely at her. "Something of which your uncle has never told you."
In the flush of her gratified ambition, Ernestine did not hear him. She walked a few steps to and fro, then seated herself again, and said with a beating heart, "Perhaps you also bring the answer to my application for admission to the lectures at the University."
"I do, but it has been rejected decidedly, Fräulein Hartwich."
Ernestine's arms dropped at her sides. "Rejected! Was it known, when they rejected it, that the prize essay was mine?"
"It was."