‘In winning me? Yes. I have been her slave for many years; that is, when I saw that it was necessary to her self-respect that I should bend the knee before her, I bent it, and have enjoyed the greatest amiability and kindness from her ever since.’ ‘Oh—that! I don’t call that being won,’ said Sara, with rather a disdainful curl of the lip. ‘No? What, then, is your idea of being won?’ he asked, as he trifled with the leaves of a plant standing in a pot near to him. ‘In the case of a man or of a woman, do you mean?’ ‘Of—say of a man.’ ‘Well, Luise has not won you. Have you read any of Browning’s poetry?’ ‘Very little. Why?’ ‘There is a little poem of his about wearing a rose. It concludes: ‘“Then, how grace a rose? I know a way. Leave it, rather, Must you gather; Smell, kiss, wear it, and then throw away.”’ ‘That is severe,’ he said. ‘But true. And you are no more won by Luise than the man who could so write of a rose was won by it. But that is not the way in which she has won Max Helmuth. And she does not care to win any other in that way.’ ‘I believe you are right. She has more power than I thought. Then do you think she could really win me in the end?’ ‘No; I should think not,’ said Sara. ‘I know some one who, I think, would be much more likely to win you.’ ‘Who?’ he exclaimed, so eagerly that she looked at him in surprise. He was skirting dangerous ground, and he knew it and enjoyed it. ‘Avice Wellfield, if she were old enough.’ ‘Miss Wellfield?’ he echoed, and looked at her with a look she did not understand. ‘Miss Wellfield before Fräulein Wilhelmi, certainly. Yes, there is a wonderful charm about her. If you were not so strict in your definition of “won,” I should say she had won me already by the mystery and poetry which seems to envelop her. But you will not allow me to say “won,” of a feeling like that. In the same way,’ he continued composedly, ‘I should say that you had won me long ago by your simplicity.’ ‘By my simplicity?’ echoed Sara, not giving a thought to the serious and decidedly personal turn the conversation was taking; feeling only that it was a pleasant break in the far from easy or pleasant current of her reflections while alone. ‘Yes; your almost classical simplicity and freedom from every sort of affectation—a simplicity which extends to your whole nature, and which is so engrained that you are quite unconscious of it. My telling you of it will not cause you to lose it. I defy you to lose it. I should not wonder if some day it led you into doing or saying something which conventional people would call outrageous.’ ‘You are remarkably candid this afternoon,’ she said, much amused. ‘I do not see why you should have a monopoly of it. I will tell you what it was in you that “won” me, as you call it.’