"Johanna!" he growled, interrupting her; but she was not to be intimidated.
"No, I cannot!" she repeated. "You pride yourself upon your forbears, and I am as proud of my father and the distinguished name he bequeathed to me. Grandpapa, I thank you from my very soul, but to repudiate this name would be a transgression of the fifth commandment."
At first her grandfather's eyes had flashed angrily, but the longer she spoke the gentler became his looks and his air. Johanna never had pleased him so well as at this moment, with her glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes. However she might cling in her childish delusion to the plebeian name, she showed race, Dönninghausen race, and, moreover, her bold, fearless opposition did him good. To every despotic nature there come moments of weariness of a rule over slaves. And the allusion to the fifth commandment had its effect.
"If this is the way you take it, I must give up my plan," he said. "I enjoin upon no one any transgression of duty, any sin against God's commands. But you take a wrong view of it. When you marry——" He broke off suddenly, and his face grew dark again. Who in his own sphere would marry the actor's daughter, since she spurned in foolish arrogance the bridge which kind hands would have built for her? But ingratitude was always the reward of kindness. Otto, too, was deaf to his grandfather's well-meant admonitions, and Johann Leopold looked upon all his plans for his future with indifference, if not with aversion. This must not be!
The Freiherr returned to the castle in gloomy mood, and had scarcely reached his room when Johann Leopold made his appearance with his letters for the post.
"Stay here; I have something to say to you," the Freiherr ordered, as he turned to leave the room. Johann Leopold changed colour; the Freiherr noticed it, and the veins in his forehead began to swell. "Why do you turn so pale?" he asked, angrily. "Do me the favour to sit down, or I shall have you fainting away shortly. You are ill, nervous, and must be treated cautiously, Thekla says. Deuce take it! Brace yourself, my lad, and cheer up! The heir of Dönninghausen must not go lagging about like an hysterical girl!"
The old Herr folded his arms across his broad chest and went to the window. Johann Leopold, who, in obedience to his grandfather, had taken a seat at the table in the centre of the room, said, with an evident effort, "You are right; the present condition of affairs is intolerable; nevertheless, I hope to be able to prove to you that I have worked hard to alter it. If I have been silent hitherto, it has been, in great part at least, out of regard for you."
The Freiherr turned round. "Worked hard—been silent—regard for me!" he growled. "What does all this mean? Collect yourself. Nothing extraordinary is required of you. Only some little sympathy with my task, the administration of the property which will, heaven only knows how soon, be your own; and your betrothal with Magelone."
Johann Leopold clutched the arms of his chair, his pale face grew ashen, and without looking up he said, almost with a gasp, "Dear grandfather, I can neither be the heir nor marry Magelone. I have inherited my mother's disease, and have resolved not to bequeath it further."
"Johann Leopold!" the Freiherr almost shouted, and in two strides he stood beside him. "Diseases can be cured," he added, after a pause.