Johanna made no reply, and was glad when Magelone soon after left the room. How could it be that this woman, who had known Otto from childhood, should judge him so falsely? A man of the world, yes; but far too gay and warm-hearted to be capable of the calculation with which Magelone accredited him. Johanna told herself that she had been wrong to delay sending him the letter for which he had begged her, and she resolved to write to him to-day.
But as she sat pen in hand with the paper before her, she discovered that Magelone's remarks had produced an effect. The ease with which, before hearing them, she could have expressed her delight in Johann Leopold's recovery was gone. What she wrote seemed to her first like a protest against Magelone's declaration, and then to be too warmly expressed. When she had destroyed several beginnings she confined herself to a mere announcement of Johann Leopold's rapid improvement, with a request for the return of Magelone's memorandum-tablets. When the letter had gone, she would fain have recalled it.
Ludwig had requested that there should be no demonstrations of pleasure at Johann Leopold's reappearance in the family circle; and when the convalescent joined them, the Freiherr, Aunt Thekla, and Johanna greeted him quietly as if he had not been absent. Leo, however, would not be repressed; he leaped up upon the friend whom he had so long missed, barking loudly, and nearly knocked him down. At this moment Magelone entered the room.
"Johann Leopold!" she cried joyously, and, hastening to him, she took his hand in both her own and looked up at him with sparkling eyes. He grew paler than before.
"Do not trouble yourself,—I know all you would say. I know my friends," he said, in a tone audible only to herself, as he withdrew his hand.
She changed color, but the next moment she smiled again, and, with a slight shrug, took her usual seat at the window. Aunt Thekla, who had heard nothing, but had observed the manner of the two, looked anxiously at her brother, who, however, was talking with Ludwig, pacing the room to and fro the while, and seemed to have noticed nothing of the meeting.
"Leave us! No, my dear doctor, you must not think of it," he said now, pausing in his walk. "After all the sad days which you have passed with us, you must learn something of the cheerful side of Dönninghausen."
"Cheerful side!" Magelone repeated to herself, casting an expressive look upwards, while the Freiherr added, "You said lately that you were about to write a book; do it here."
"Thank you, Herr von Dönninghausen," Ludwig replied; "but I could find no leisure here for writing. Good work must be done among those who work too."
The Freiherr tossed his head. "There we have the arrogance of the scholar," he said, and his eyes flashed beneath his bent brows. "Do you mean to imply that I do not work?"