The words would not come; he trembled all over. Elsa had never seen him so. Her limbs trembled also; but she was determined to do what she thought her duty--what she had never so clearly recognised as her duty till that moment. "Dear Ottomar," said she, "I do not ask if you really require such a frightful amount of money. Papa has often told us----" "That when he was a lieutenant, he managed upon eighteen thalers a month. For heaven's sake, no more of that! Times were different then. My father was in the Line; I am in the Guards; and he and I--are like the Antipodes." "Very well. I take it for granted that you require as much as you say. In three years I shall also be of age, and shall then have five thousand thalers; I will gladly give them to you, if----" "'I am not married by that time.' Is that what you meant to say?" "I will not marry then. I--I will never marry." She could not any longer keep back her tears, which now streamed from her eyes. Ottomar put his arm round her. "You dear, good Elsa," said he. "I really do believe that you are capable of it; but do you not see that it would be a thousand times more hateful to save oneself at the cost of a sister whom one dearly loves, than at the cost of a woman whom one does not love certainly, but who very probably does not wish to be loved?" "But, Ottomar, that--that is just it," exclaimed Elsa, drying her tears. "Why marry Carla, of whom I cannot say that she is incapable of loving; who, indeed, I am persuaded, does love you at this moment, in her way? But her way is not your way; and that you would soon find out, even if you yourself loved her, which you avowedly do not. You are not suited to one another. With the one exception that, in spite of her short sight, she rides well and is passionately fond of it, I do not know a single interest that you have in common. Her music--that is to say, her Wagner music--about which she is so enthusiastic, is hateful to you; her books, which I am convinced she very often does not understand herself, you will never look at; and it is the same on every subject. And the worst of all is, that what she understands by love is not what you understand by it. You have--say what you will, and brilliant man of society as you are, and I hope always will be--a tender, kind heart, which longs to beat against a heart of the same nature. Carla's love is, I fear, too much mixed with vanity, lies too much on the glittering, sparkling surface of life; and if you longed some day to hear a deeper note, and struck that note yourself, you would find no echo in her heart." "Why, Elsa, you are wonderfully learned in matters of the heart!" said Ottomar. "Whom did you learn it all from--from Count Golm?" Elsa blushed up to the roots of her hair; she drew her arm out of her brother's. "I have not deserved that," she said.