Cordt sprang up and took her hands firmly in his own and drew her to him. But she tore herself away and her eyes stared vacantly into his and did not see him.
“Adelheid!”
“Those are your children and mine, Cordt ... the little children who cry when I am merry ... the children who died because their mother danced....”
“Adelheid!”
His voice was very soft and his eyes very gentle. She stared into them and saw a gleam in their depths. She understood that he was rejoicing within himself, because he thought that he had her as he wanted her.
He put out his hands to her and his eyes and his silent, quivering mouth spoke a thousand loving words to her. She stood stiff and cold and looked at him stiffly and coldly.
And, when his hands touched her, she drew from him and pushed her chair far back, as if she could not find room enough:
“You do not understand me,” she said.
She crossed the room to the balcony-door and stood there. Then she came back to the fireplace, where he had sat down, and looked at him as though he were a stranger:
“Those little children who cry,” she said, “what do they cry for?”