Then her mood changed about. She pushed herself back in her chair and crossed her arms over her breast:
“Then I must help myself,” she said. “How could you, either, an old ... yes, an old man like you?”
He did not answer, did not stir, did not look at her.
“An old man like you,” she repeated, “who longs for peace and quiet and nothing else. Then you give out that that is the best happiness which is the easiest and the cheapest and the best adapted to domestic use.”
Cordt had raised himself upright in his chair. His hands lay clenched about his knee, his eyes blazed.
“Then you put the woman you love in your mother’s chair ... your grandmother’s and your great-grandmother’s chair....”
He flew up and stood before her with his hands on his hips and his lips pressed close together:
“Hold your tongue!”
Fru Adelheid started and looked at him with frightened eyes:
“You have no right to speak to me like that,” she said.