handsome men are forever looking
into a mirror visible only to themselves. But why should I give up this
man to somebody else, and above all to this Sonnenkamp? I am situated
so that I can offer him a home with me for years! Why not do it?

"Why not?" said Bella, putting away her embroidery. "I need not assure
you that I have no other joy in life than yours. So it is now with this
brief happiness of yours, this childlike confidence you place in this
noble-looking man. I see also that he has something elevated in his
nature; he imparts much and gladly, is stimulating and quickening."

"Why not then?"

"Because we want to be alone! Clodwig, let us be by ourselves! It is my
desire that even my brother should soon leave us; every third person,
whether related by blood or by the most intimate spiritual ties, causes
a separation, so that we do not have exclusive possession of each
other."

While she was speaking, she had placed her hand on Clodwig's arm, and
now she grasped his hand and stroked it. As Clodwig went away, Bella
looked after him, shaking her head.

Bella came to the dinner-table handsomely dressed, and with a single
rose in her hair. The men appeared weary, but she was extremely
animated. She spoke a great deal of the happiness she had always had in
being at the house of Eric's parents, where no ignoble word was ever
uttered, for the mother cherished every high thought, like a priestess
tending and feeding the smallest flame of the ideal on the household
altar. Eric, who thought that he was proof against any further
excitement, experienced a new and elevated emotion.

They drove out at noon, and Bella was silent during the ride. They
visited a former Roman encampment. Bella sat alone under a tree, upon a
covering spread upon the ground, and the men walked about.

When they came together around the evening lamp, Bella seemed like an
entirely different person, having for the third time, that day, changed
her dress. She was now very lively.

Bella had never been, during her whole life, dissatisfied with herself;
she had never repented anything she had done, always saying. You were
fully justified, at the moment when you acted. She did not wish at this
time to appear in a false light to her husband's favorite, or as a mere
trifling appendage; Eric should know who she was, that she was not only
Clodwig's wife, but over and above all, Bella von Pranken.

She was ready to play as soon as Clodwig expressed th