With an effort to control herself, she replied, "What have I done, Herr Delmar,--how have I ever offended you? How given you the right thus to wound me?" Paul was prepared for a sharp reply, to which he would have made as sharp a rejoinder; but tears, and this gentle reproof! He had never been so nonplussed; he felt ashamed and confused, and hardly knowing what he said, he stammered, "Indeed, Fräulein Schommer--you are mistaken--I did not mean to wound you." "You did mean to wound me, and you succeeded excellently well," Eva rejoined, still mastering her emotion, and looking directly at Delmar with eyes before which his own sought the ground. "I know how unfavourable is your opinion of Herr von Bertram. Your sarcastic congratulation was an intentional offence which I have not deserved at your hands." Delmar felt precisely like some school-boy caught in a particularly disgraceful trick and forced to listen without a word of reply to a severe reprimand, the justice of which he could not but acknowledge. The quiet dignity and the feminine gentleness of Eva's reply to his ironical address completely disarmed him. His wonted skill in repartee forsook him, and he could only say simply, in excuse, "Forgive me!" From the altered expression of his face Eva saw clearly that these words were prompted by sincere regret for his late attack. The sneer had entirely vanished, and there was such genuine entreaty for forgiveness in his eyes that she could not but accord it to him. "I am not angry," she said, not unkindly; "but it pains me that even you, whom I have never offended, can take pleasure in wounding me. I will forget the words in which you couched your congratulations just now if you will frankly tell me in what way I have provoked your hostility." "You subject me to painful embarrassment. I assure you that I entertain not the slightest hostility towards you."