"Be calm!" he said. "'It is ill stirring a muddy pool.' If you say so, I will have a contradiction published in all the principal papers. But would this really do any good? The contradiction would give circulation to the falsehood, which, perhaps, in Stein's obscure paper, may escape the notice of your kindred."
Johanna sighed. "Possibly you are right," she rejoined; "but it is hard to sit still and do nothing."
"You are not required to 'do nothing.' On the contrary, it behooves you to work steadily and continually if you would maintain your place in the 'struggle for existence,' of which we hear so much nowadays. An author's mortal career, unless he be a special favourite of fortune, is hard; doubly so if, as in your case, he rejects the advantages at his command. Pursue a literary calling as your father's daughter, and you will find your path a very different one from that which you must tread anonymously or under a nom de plume. Consider whether in your regard for the prejudices of your kindred you do not wrong yourself."
Johanna seemed not to hear him. Leaning against the window-seat, with her head resting on her hand, she was gazing into space, and by the light of the gas-lamps just lit in the street below, she looked so pale and weary that he feared his presence fatigued her. He rose cautiously, and laid the sleeping child upon the sofa, then took his hat and was about to withdraw. But Johanna roused herself from her abstraction, and held out her hand to him. "Are you going?" she said. "Thank you for both your pleasant and your unpleasant tidings, and answer me one more question: Was that notice inserted at Batti's instigation?"
"In a certain sense, yes," the young man replied. "I hear it is the result of a wager between Batti and Stein. The latter declared that he could conquer your aversion to the circus——"
"And I thought Batti a good man,—supposed him to be my friend!" cried Johanna.
"He probably considers himself such," rejoined Wolf. "He only wishes to force you to what he regards as your good; and if he has an eye at the same time to his own interest, why, we are all like him there."
"You have no right to say that; you are not so!" said Johanna. "What interest of yours has been served by the countless kindnesses you have shown me since we first knew each other?"
"My dear Fräulein, can we flatter our subtle selfishness more delightfully than by rendering the services of friendship?" asked the young man. "But this has not been the question between you and me. All that I have apparently done for you was in truth contrived in opposition to another; whether from hatred, from revenge, or from a desire to shield goodness and purity, I do not know."
It had grown so dark that Johanna, although she was seated opposite to him, could not distinguish the expression of his face; but a slight tremor in his voice betrayed his emotion.