Frau Rupius remained serious. She had not the usual smile on her lips.
"I am very glad to see you. The hour makes no difference to me."
Then she threw her a questioning glance, and Bertha did not know what to say. She was annoyed, too, at the childish embarrassment, of which she could not rid herself in the presence of Frau Rupius.
"I wanted," she said, at length, "to ask you how you felt after our trip."
"Quite well," answered Frau Rupius, rather stiffly. But all at once her features changed, and she added with excessive friendliness: "Really, it was my place to have asked you. I am accustomed to those trips, you know."
As she said this she looked through the window and Bertha mechanically followed her gaze, which wandered over to the other side of the market square to an open window with flowers on the sill. It was quite calm, and the repose of a summer day shrouded the slumbering town. Bertha would have dearly liked to sit beside Frau Rupius and be kissed upon the brow by her, and blessed; but at the same time she had a feeling of compassion towards her. All this puzzled her. For what reason, indeed, had she really come? And what should she say to her?… "I'm going to-morrow to Vienna to see the man who used to be in love with me when I was a girl?"… In what way did all that concern Frau Rupius? Would it really interest her in the very slightest degree? There she sat as if surrounded by something impenetrable; it was impossible to approach her. She could not approach her, that was the trouble. Of course, there was a word by means of which it was possible to find the way to her heart, only Bertha did not know it.
"Well, how is your little boy?" asked Frau Rupius, without taking her eyes off the flowers in the opposite window.
"He is going on as well as ever. He is very well-behaved, and is a marvellously good child!"
The last word she uttered with an intentional tenderness as though Frau
Rupius was to be won over by that means.
"Yes, yes," answered the latter, her tone implying that she knew he was good, and had not asked about that. "Have you a reliable nursemaid?" she added.