And she had been unhappy, even in the hours when the enthusiastic artists--Justus's friends--had done homage in unmeasured terms to the blooming beauty of the young girl; when these men praised her talents, told her she was on the right road to become an artist; finally, that she was an artist--a true artist. She did not believe them; and if she really were an artist, there were so many greater ones--even Justus's hand reached so much higher and further than hers; laughing, and apparently without trouble, he gathered fruits for which she strove with the most intense effort, and which, as she secretly acknowledged to herself, must always be beyond her reach. She had told her woes to that great French artist, on whom her beauty had made such an overpowering expression. He had for some time only put her off with courteous and smiling words; at last he had said seriously: "Mademoiselle, there is only one highest happiness for woman, and that is love; and there is only one talent in which no man can equal her--that is again love." The words had crushed her; her artistic talent was then only a childish dream, and love! Yes, she knew that she could love--unspeakably, boundlessly! But the man was still to be found who could awaken that love to its heavenward soaring flame; and woe to her when she found him! He would not comprehend her love, he would not realise it, and he would certainly be unable to return it; perhaps would shrink back before its fire, and she would be more unhappy than before. And was not this gloomy foreboding already sadly fulfilled? Had she not already felt herself unspeakably unhappy in her love for him who had come to her as if sent from heaven--as if he himself were one of the heavenly ones? Had she not already, countless times, with hot tears, with bitter scorn, with writhing despair, complained, exclaimed, cried out, that he did not understand or realise her love, never would understand or realise it? Had she not clearly seen that he trembled and shrank back, not from the danger which threatened him on the dark path of his love--he was as bold and dexterous as man could be--but before her love, before her all-powerful, but also all-exacting, insatiable love? She had experienced this again yesterday, at the very instant that followed that happy moment when she had received and returned his first kiss! And to-day; to-day she smiled at her doubts amidst tears of joy; to-day she asked pardon of her beloved, amidst a thousand burning kisses that she pressed in thought on his beautiful brow, his tender eyes, and his dear mouth, for every harsh or bitter word or thought she had ever had against him, and which she never, never would say or think again.