Erlau shook his head incredulously. "As if you would ever show that you suffered! I know best what reticence and self-control are hidden under these fair plaits. You have often displayed more of it than you could answer for to your second father, but his sight is keener and goes deeper than that of others; and I tell you, Eleonore, you cannot be recognised since the day when that Rinaldo, regardless of all refusals, at last forced an interview upon you. What exactly passed between you I do not know to this day; it was trouble enough even to obtain the confession from you that he was with you. You are utterly inaccessible in such matters, but deny it as you may, you have become quite another person since that hour."
"Nothing took place at all," persisted Ella, "nothing of importance. He demanded to see the child, and I refused him."
"And who answers for it that he will not repeat the attempt?"
"Reinhold. You do not know him! I have dismissed him from my door; he will never pass it a second time. He understood everything, only not how to humble himself."
"At any rate he had tact enough to leave Mirando as soon as possible," said Erlau. "This vicinity would have been unbearable for any length of time. But his withdrawal was not of much use, as then Marchese Tortoni sprang up, who raved so uninterruptedly to you about his friend that I felt obliged at last to give him a hint that this subject did not receive the slightest sympathy from us."
"Perhaps you did it too plainly," suggested Ella, softly. "He had no conception of the wounds he touched, and your harsh repulse of it must have seemed remarkable to him."
"I do not care! Then he can obtain the commentary upon it from his much-admired friend. Were I to allow you to endure Signor Rinaldo's glorification for hours, certainly we were not much better off here. One cannot take up a newspaper, receive a visit, hold a conversation, without stumbling upon his name; every third word is Rinaldo. He seems to have infected the whole town with his tones and his new opera, which seems to be considered here as a sort of event of the world. Poor child! and you must be quiet under it all, must witness how this man regularly revels in victories and triumphs, how he has attained the zenith of success, and maintains it undisputed."
The young wife rested her head on her hand so that the latter shaded her face.
"Perhaps you deceive yourself after all. He may be celebrated and worshipped like no other--happy he is not."
"I am glad of it," said the Consul, violently, "I am extremely glad of it. There would be no more justice or right in the world if he were. And that he has seen you, as you allow yourself to be seen now, does not conduce much to his happiness, I hope."