"I do not understand you, Lieschen. Bertha treats you with special sweetness. She is fond of you, and shows that she is so by not being hurt by your coldness."
"I do not believe in the sincerity of her sweetness and cordiality. Now and then when she forgets herself in the heat of conversation she betrays her real thoughts and feelings, and a curtain suddenly seems lifted from before her inner self. Do you not remember how she spoke a while ago of Valerie Laupe?"
Frau von Osternau looked at her daughter in surprise, and, more for something to say than from a desire to defend Bertha, replied, "We ought not to weigh every hasty word with such nicety. One often says more in the heat of argument than reason would justify; you do so sometimes, as every one does. What, for example, should we think of Herr Pigglewitch, if all his words were so harshly criticised?"
Lieschen's cheek flushed slightly, but she looked up at her mother and replied, without embarrassment, "They are both puzzles to me. In a certain way they are alike,--the true self of each seems hidden behind a veil; but when this veil is slightly lifted in his case I seem to see a poor, harassed heart, a spirit longing for the noble and the true. In Bertha's case the veil covers an abyss of selfishness, avarice, and love of pleasure."
"Good heavens, child! what puts such thoughts, such words into your head?" Frau von Osternau exclaimed in dismay.
"I cannot tell, mother. I have been thinking a great deal about these two people, and I have come to this conclusion."
Her mother did not continue the conversation, but at night, when she was alone with her husband, she repeated to him word for word what Lieschen had said. "If that extraordinary man had only never come inside our doors,"--it was thus she concluded her tale. "He, and not Bertha, is to blame for the sad transformation which our child has undergone. For my sake, Fritz, dismiss him. Pay him his salary for an entire year; only let him leave the house."
Herr von Osternau shook his head. "Do you think Lieschen conceals anything from you?" he asked.
"No, assuredly not."
"Did she ever complain that he had spoken to her otherwise than as a teacher should speak to a pupil, or have you ever observed that he has in his lessons or in social intercourse with us transgressed any law of good breeding?"