Sonnenkamp was at a loss to know what that meant, but the danger of losing Eric seemed immediately to affect the youth, so that he looked up in a help-imploring way. And it was now clear to Eric, what was intended in regard to him, and he now for the first time understood what was interrupted by Sonnenkamp's coming up to the carriage.
They took only a hasty look at the greenhouses, for Bella said that when it was green and blooming outside, the imprisonment of the plants had something oppressive to her.
Fräulein Perini soon appeared, sent by Frau Ceres, to make known her intention not to be sick to-day.
Bella and Fräulein Perini had separated themselves from the men; they had much to say to each other, and Eric was naturally the first subject. Bella could not forbear expressing her surprise to Fräulein Perini, that she had so completely seen through the singular man, although Fräulein Perini had not really yet said anything. But this remark forced her to reply, though nothing of her real opinion was given; for Fräulein Perini said that she constantly felt fresh admiration at the German learned world, meaning to include Bella, who was to be almost looked upon as a learned woman.
Bella took no notice of this equivocal compliment; she assumed a matronly tone, while confessing that she had no near relation to the young men of the day, and was not sure that she understood them. Neither one of the ladies seemed to come out fully with her opinion, and each appeared to regard the other as cherishing a secret inclination for Eric.
"Do you know," said Frau Bella, looking very attentively at the rose which Sonnenkamp had given her, "do you know that this man with the double title has an insultingly low opinion of the female sex?"
"No, I did not know that, but it may be a part of that radical heresy, as Baron von Pranken calls it, which he parades with such manifest conceit."
"But what opinion have you formed about Herr Dournay?"
"I have not formed any opinion about him."
"I am not impartial; he does not belong to our church."
"But supposing that he did belong to our church, how would you then regard him?"
"It is not to be supposed. This complacent self-assumption is not possible with a person who has subjected himself to the divine law; his deportment is that of a prince travelling incog., or more properly, as Herr Baron von Pranken says, 'the man coaches round the world in a lecturer's invisible chair.'"