espect this
regard to your position."

He was silent for a few minutes; it occurred to him that, instead of
what he had meant to say, he might warn Eric not to have too much to do
with Bella. But would not this be an insinuation against his sister? He
decided to go back to his first plan, and said shortly,--

"I think I may tell you that I am almost a son of this house, Fraeulein
Sonnenkamp is as good as engaged to me."

"If Fraeulein Sonnenkamp is like her brother, I can congratulate you
heartily, I thank you for your unexpected, and as yet undeserved,
confidence; may I ask why you have honored me with it?"

Pranken became more inwardly enraged, but outwardly still more
flattering; he nervously worked his right hand, as if he were using a
riding-whip, but he smiled very condescendingly and said,--

"I have not been mistaken in you." After a pause he continued:--"I
acknowledge fully your considerateness."

He did not answer directly the question as to the cause of his
confidence, and there was hardly time, for Roland now called Eric to
the sitting.

"One would think ten years had passed since I left off drawing," said
Bella, "you look so much older now."

Eric could not speak out his thoughts. The way in which Pranken had
treated him, and the manner in which he had borne himself, disturbed
him very much. He was sitting now quite still, but it seemed to him as
if he were being rent asunder. He felt that there was something
fundamentally false in his relations with Pranken. They were both aware
of the contrast and discord which existed between them; they ought
either to have been open enemies, or to have passed each other with
indifference; and yet some spell seemed to draw them together, and to
persuade them into apparent friendliness.

All misery springs from untruthfulness. The world would be quite a
different place, and much misery would be saved, could we be true at
all times, and not allow ourselves to be led into lasting relations and
obligations, while we silence the inward remonstrance by saying,--It
will all turn out well; the matter need not be taken so seriously. But
in thousands of cases the lie is concealed, veiled, beautified, as in
that Bible-story, where the serpent overcomes all opposition, all
argument, by the words,--"Only eat, and you will not die, but only
become wise."

The great punishment of a relation founded on false grounds is, that it
constantly demands from us farther untruthfuln