"Yes."
"'Yes.' How that sounds! I like laconic brevity, but it must not be ambiguous. What does that 'yes' mean? It sounds neither sweet nor bitter; and then your face!—why is that defiant frown there between your eyebrows?"
"Because I think that there are limits to every right."
"I did not know that I was making use of my right just at present."
"But you will know it if you will ask yourself whether you would address me thus harshly in my father's house."
Herr von Walde grew pale. He compressed his lips, and retreated a few paces. Elizabeth took the book which he had laid upon the window-sill, and went to the bookcase to close it.
"Under the same circumstances, I should have spoken exactly so in your father's house," he said, after awhile, somewhat more gently, as he again approached the window. "You make me impatient. Why do you answer so ambiguously? How could I tell from that simple syllable whether the disappointment of which you spoke were a disagreeable or a pleasant one? Well?"
He leaned far across the window-sill, and looked full into her face, as though to read the answer upon her lips; but she turned away with irritation. Hateful thought! How could any one suppose that Hollfeld could ever be agreeable to her? Did not her face, her whole bearing towards the man, show how thoroughly disagreeable she thought him?
At this moment Miss Mertens entered the room to seek Elizabeth. She had completed all her preparations, and was quite ready to leave the house. With a sigh of relief, Elizabeth hastened to her, while Herr von Walde left the window and paced to and fro several times on the lawn. When he again approached, Miss Mertens went towards him, and courtesied profoundly. She told him that she had in vain endeavoured to obtain access to him several times that day, and that she rejoiced to have an opportunity to thank him for his kindness and thoughtfulness.
He made a deprecating gesture, and offered his congratulations upon her betrothal. He spoke very calmly. Again his whole presence breathed an atmosphere of dignity and reserve, so that Elizabeth could not understand how she had ever found the courage to remind this man of the laws of common politeness. The eyes that had flashed so passionately now looked serenely into Miss Mertens' face. The deep, gentle tones of his voice obliterated all remembrance of the cutting irony that had rendered it so sharp a few moments before, when it had given to his words such an accent of irritation, and had sounded as if designed only to wound and avenge.