"What a prosaic point of view!" cried Elsa. "Tell me, ladies, can there be anything more monstrous than a botanist who does not love flowers? It is as unnatural as for a musician to take no pleasure in music. It is treason to the _scientia amabilis_." "You say so," replied the professor with some asperity, "only because you do not know what is at the present day called 'the lovely science.' I assure you, modern botany has, as De Bury remarks, no more right to this title than any other science. It is only the knowledge of a couple of thousands of names of flowers and the manifold conditions of their existence,--the examination into their manner of life,--in other words, the physiology of plants. The flower is not the end, but the means to an end, the end of physics, physiology, and every other science: the discovery of the whole by a knowledge of a part Let this part be plant, man, or beast, we are all searching for the same laws, and it is just as unnecessary that a botanist should be fond of flowers as that a physiologist should be a philanthropist." Elsa blushed rosy red at these words. "Möllner loves mankind,--I know he does," she whispered. "So much the better for him if he does," said the professor smiling. "That is a private satisfaction of his own, and we will not disturb it. But, seen in the light of his profession, men are no more to him than plants,--to me plants are no less than men. Both are to us only subjects for untiring investigation." "I cannot think that of Möllner," said Elsa softly to herself. The botanist shrugged his shoulders compassionately and left her. When he rejoined his brethren, they accosted him with, "It is easy to see that you have not been here long, or you would not try to preach reason into Elsa Herbert. Who could make a woman understand such things?" And there was a burst of laughter, in which Hilsborn was the only one who did not join. He was never disposed to sneer. Although he himself could not overcome his dislike for Elsa, he was too amiable to put it into words. "But, really, for one's own sake it is best to make an attempt at least to enlighten the ignorant," the botanist replied, when thus attacked. "It is impossible to listen in silence to such nonsense." "Then, Fräulein Elsa, you consider it a blessed lot to be devoured by cows," said a young private tutor, who had but just thrown off his student's gown. Elsa was quite happy. She had not received so much attention for a long time. It was the consequence of her originality. How excellent, too, her spirits were to-day! What a pity that Möllner was not present to witness her triumph! "Yes," she said gaily, "whatever is as perishable as a flower cannot die a more charming death than----" "In a cow's mouth," laughed the skeptic. "It is unfortunate that Fechner had not conceived this poetic idea before he wrote his 'Nanna.'" "Oh, you may ridicule anything in that way, if you choose to do so," said Elsa.