She herself liked the
young man extremely, admired his handsome face, his fine voice, his
modest, unassuming manners, but she felt instinctively that he
belonged to quite a different world from herself, and that in a
sense they would always be strangers. When he spoke she could not
follow his thoughts, although she felt that they were very profound;
when she spoke he listened with the greatest politeness, but nothing
more came of it. He tried to be attentive to her stories about
engagements and separations, he was entirely uninterested in rich
people, he did not praise the best dishes at table, and he even went
so far as not to conceal his aversion for the design of the horrible
knight in cross-stitch. Beside all this, his clothes were bad, and
although he had a house of his own, it was only a little one. No,
Wilhelm as a relation was not to be thought of. He was not of their
own flesh and blood, like that good, delightful Paul Haber.
It was not in Paul's nature to wait patiently in suspense, and he
determined to put an end to his uncertainty. Malvine seemed to him
as desirable as ever, and he had built up in his mind a future, of
which Malvine and her sixty thousand thalers were the foundation. He
must know whether she were for him or not; in the one case to
transform his castle in the air into reality without loss of time,
and in the other case not to waste the best years of his life in
aimless disappointment; not to let other opportunities slip by.
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