She was not angry, but she thought that love in life is of rare fulfillment.  Again another night of loneliness:  yesterday it was a disagreeable necessity, now an agreeable excitement, but both alike led to a lonely room and a lonely heart.  But in the shade Dumiger pressed her hand, and assured her with many kisses that he would return within two hours, and she tried to feel satisfied and assured.  The three friends sat down; a larger table replaced the small stand which had been exclusively devoted to ices; three bottles of huge dimensions were brought from the cellar; pledge after pledge was received and given.  Dumiger became a different man, save that at moments, in the midst of some burst of louder hilarity, the cloud of ambition would cross his brow and seem to furrow it, and then he would fold his arms across his breast, as if to repress the outbreak of his soul.  It was during one of these moments of abstraction that Carl turned suddenly round.

“Why, Dumiger,” he exclaimed, “you do not fill your glass!  In former days, man, you were of a very different mood.  Has marriage so tamed you?  Won’t Marguerite allow it!”

Krantz and the two friends made the place ring with their rude students’ laugh.  “Ha! ha!  I, why I am in excellent spirits,” said Dumiger, filling a bumper with the strongest of the wines upon the table.  “I ought to be in good spirits, for I have everything to make me so.”

“Ay, the most beautiful girl in Dantzic for a wife,” said Carl.

“With a large fortune?” said Krantz, laughing.

“That will come,” replied Dumiger, heated by wine.

“Large fortune!” they both exclaimed; “where are you to get it, student?  Have you found an old cave in the Grime Thor, Dumiger, with a fortune buried, as the old romances have it?”

“Yes, I shall soon discover a fortune,” exclaimed the boy, now fairly excited, and his cheeks glowing with animation; “and more than a fortune.  Fame and honors shall be heaped upon us.  Do you imagine that I have been wasting the last three years of my life? do you believe that the ambition which was the subject of your illusive aim at college is dead?  No! look here, Carl and Krantz, this day week will see me famous, and ennoble my family till it vies even with the Grand Master’s.”

“You are mad,” said Carl.

“No, I am speaking words of soberness,” said he, with an earnestness which carried conviction even to those wild spirits.  “I tell you that I have an inward confidence that I shall win this prize which was proclaimed to-day, that my name will be associated with the proudest fame ever reared in Dantzic.  Oh, the nights and days of toil, the hopes and fears which have agitated me, for the last three years:  these will account to you for the paleness of my cheek, and my vacant look.  Well, I have this day completed the test by which the accuracy of my work is proved, and now I hold I shall be great.”