Another was clever, but
she talked too much. One could spend an hour with her pleasantly, but a
whole day, a whole week--brrr!
This one, after a few days, would long to return to her circle of
admirers and rivals, and under the dome of St. Peter's dream of the court
entertainments, adorers, and society gossip; that one, with her prosaic
nature, would transform the blue grotto of Capri into the office of a
chief auditor. Others stood the test better, but even with them doubts
arose, which grew stronger the more he thought of them. Perhaps he could
endure a week, a fortnight, with them. But six weeks, two months? No.
By that time they would surely have become indifferent, perhaps
intolerable. They would certainly have nothing more to offer him, he
nothing more to say to them.
In the proportion in which other women's images faded and vanished, one
stood forth more and more clearly, and finally filled his whole mental
field of vision. Fraeulein von Markwald--yes, with her the adventure
might be risked. She was as beautiful as any fair one whose likeness he
had kept in his love archives; a tall, proud figure, large dark-blue eyes
which evidently dreamed of love behind their long, shading lashes, and
often seemed to wake from this ardent trance of bliss with a sudden
upward glance, blooming lips for which many a godly man would have
relinquished his soul's salvation without hesitation, an unusually fair
complexion with satiny reflections, and a really regal coronal of rich
golden hair--all in all a magnificent creature, such as Nature does not
often create.
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