She wished to show him the vase, which a kind uncle had sent her as a birthday present from Trebizond. Her countenance was radiant from sheer joy at having her beloved beside her alone, and at being able to show him something pretty, and he too was genuinely happy. Besides, there was sunshine in his heart at last, so that he could no longer keep his lips from smiling trustfully nor his eyes from sparkling. But the ancients have forgotten to give a name to the envious divinity, the rival of gentle Eros, who, at the critical moment when good fortune is closest at hand, throws a veil over lovers' eyes, and twists the word in their mouth. As she gave the bowl trustfully into his hands, and he asked who had sent it to her, a merry rashness misled her into the jest of answering "Fabricius." She felt sure that Theophilus could not fail to see the joke. But, as she was unable to give her merry excited smile that shade of mockery at the mention of the absent one, which would have made the jest evident, Theophilus was firmly convinced that her sweet and genuine joy was due to the present and its giver, and that he had fallen into a nasty trap by intruding into a circle which was forbidden and strange to him. Confounded and ashamed, he cast down his eyes, began to tremble, and let the glittering ornament fall to the ground, where it was shivered to pieces. In her first dismay, Dorothea forgot all about her joke, and almost forgot Theophilus, and could only stoop aghast to pick up the pieces, exclaiming "How clumsy!" without bestowing a look upon him; so that she did not see the alteration in his features, and had no suspicion that he had misunderstood her. But, when she had risen, and, recovering herself quickly, turned towards him, Theophilus had already regained his proud self-command. He looked at her inscrutably and indifferently, begged almost mockingly for pardon, promising her full restitution for the vase which had come to grief, then bowed and left the garden. Pale and sorrowful she looked after his slim figure, with the white toga wrapped closely about it, and his black curly head bent to one side as if his thoughts were already far away from her. The waves of the silvery sea lapped soft and lazy against the marble steps on the beach, all else around was still, and Dorothea's little devices were at an end. Weeping, she slipped away with the collected fragments of the vase to hide them in her room. They did not see each other again for many months. Theophilus returned at once to the capital, and when Dorothea went back there in the autumn, he sedulously avoided encountering her; for the mere possibility of meeting her alarmed and excited him. So all their happiness was gone for the nonce. The natural result was that she sought consolation in the new faith of her parents, and as soon as they observed this, they lost no time in deciding their child in her resolution, and initiating her fully into their faith and practice.