"No, no; you do not see clearly. You do not understand me. You are offended——"
"Hush, hush!" Ludwig interrupted her, leading her to her seat again. "Come, sit down, and listen to me. Why should I be offended? We all embody for ourselves an ideal of beauty and dignity. I have done the same. Shall I tell you how?"
She only nodded an assent. There was something in his manner that confused her.
"My ideal," he began, taking a seat opposite her,—"a woman, of course,—was a gay, simple-hearted creature, looking out upon life with clear, truthful eyes; not exacting much, but always ready to do her best, interested in all that was good, beautiful, and great, but with a keen sympathy for the poor and unfortunate, never neglectful of the daily tasks of life, but consecrating, as it were, the meanest among them by her performance of it, and surrounded as by a purer ether, diffusing harmony and content wherever she might be."
"Your mother!" Johanna said, when he paused.
"My mother," he repeated, with a sudden smile that wonderfully transfigured his set, determined face. And the earnest look that he turned upon Johanna was a strange mixture of gentleness, entreaty, and menace.
"My mother," he repeated. "Yes, and one other who was like her; one who I believed for years would exactly resemble her. It was an illusion; it is past."
Johanna looked down with a blush. She could not but perceive that he meant herself. But could this be love? Impossible! One does not so quickly and causelessly resign what one loves. What had she done? Left his father's house to go to her own father's house. And the thoughtless words she had just spoken? If he loved her he would know that they had been uttered too hastily. Anger and obstinacy conquered every gentler emotion, and after a short pause she rejoined coldly, without looking up, "It is not given to every one to achieve content as did your mother."
"Content!" Ludwig exclaimed; "she was a happy woman."
"Do you think so?" said Johanna, raising her eyes to his. "Had she hoped and longed for nothing more in life than the companionship of a good man, but one who wore himself out in the discharge of the duties of his profession? Do you imagine that the letting of lodgings to visitors to the baths was the true vocation for your mother's sensitive, refined nature? And could the society of two silly girls like your sister and myself indemnify her for the tedious solitude of the long winter?"