"Indeed?--spite of my bitter physic?"
"Yes, it did taste bitter, but good followed it."
"Then you felt the truth of what I said?"
She grew grave. "No, not that,--but I recognized a true, large heart, and admiration for that conquered my ailment,--delight in its sympathy overcame the pain of being misunderstood by it."
"That is more than I ventured to hope, after so short an acquaintance. Were you less magnanimous than you are, you would hate me, for I deeply wounded your vanity, and, to be frank, I propose to do so still further."
"Not a pleasant prospect, but I will be steadfast. If you deny me the strength of a man, you shall at least not find me subject to women's weaknesses,--among which I hold vanity to be the most despicable."
Johannes smiled. "And yet you are not free from this weakness. You endure my assaults upon your pride because it gratifies your vanity to prove that you are not vain."
Ernestine cast down her eyes. "You are clever at diagnosis," she said with slight bitterness.
"I am only honest. Do you not see that I know, since you have received me so kindly to-day, that it would be quite possible to win your further confidence and esteem if I would only have a little consideration for your weaknesses? Let me confess frankly that a confidence so purchased would not content me. Trifling and jesting may have deceit for their foundation, for one will last no longer than the other, but the regard that I cherish for you, and that I would awaken in you for me, must--can--be founded only in the truth,--must grow out of the inmost core of our natures; and if our natures do not harmonize, any intimate relation between us is impossible, and an artificial tie between us would be, for us, a sin. If, then, my ruthless hand searches the hidden depths of your soul,--if I outrage your vanity, so that even the vanity of being magnanimously self-forgetting will not help you to endure it,--I only fulfil a sacred duty that truth requires of me, both to you and to myself,--a duty whose postponement might be heavily avenged in the future."
Ernestine looked at him inquiringly. She did not understand him.