However, she was not embarrassed. He thought it unjust toward Flamin to observe her sentiments towards himself; but still he remarked this much,--that the observatory on which one would watch the occultations of her heart must be higher than is necessary in regard to other women. The custom of being admired had made her proof against that showing up, as in a glass, the impression of her charms with which men so often win to themselves the attention of woman's vanity. She was, as I have said, not embarrassed, but went on to tell her listener something further of Emanuel's character, which she lately, out of respect for her teacher, had not been willing to lay before such unholy ears,--namely, that he firmly believed he should die a year hence in the midnight of St. John's day.[77] Victor could easily guess that she herself believed it; but what he did not guess was, that this proud one, from pure tenderness of heart, had hastened her purpose of leaving Maienthal on St. John's day, in order not to meet the beloved man on the anniversary of the future day of his death. According to her account, this Emanuel had had a painfully exalted position among men; he was alone; he had had great friends on his bosom, but all had passed into the grave, and therefore he would also hide there his own head. Years give to stormy, over-vigorous men a finer harmony of the heart, but from refined, cold natures they take more than they give. Those strong hearts resemble English gardens, which age always makes greener, fuller, more leafy; whereas the man of the world, like a French one, is covered by years with dried-up and disfigured boughs. Victor grew more troubled; every word which he won from her he regarded as a sacrilege upon his friend, the more so as the latter did not understand so well as he the art of opening a conversation with a lady. He had not the heart to shine, because he feared thereby to be a rival of his friend for her good graces. His Flamin seemed to him to-day taller, more beautiful, and better than ever, and he himself shorter and more stupid. He wished a thousand times his father had already come, that he might deliver to him with the greatest ardor Flamin's prayer for his aid in obtaining Clotilda.