"But she doesn't like love and care and tenderness. At least, if it comes from me. She dislikes me."
Axel could not exclaim in surprise, for he was not surprised. The baroness had appeared to him to be so hopelessly sour; and how, he thought, shall the hopelessly sour love the preternaturally sweet? He looked therefore at Anna arranging the cups with restless, nervous fingers, and waited for more.
"Why do you say that?" she asked, still with her back to him.
"Say what?"
"That when she gets over this she will have all those nice things surrounding her. You told me when first she came, that if she really were the poor dancing woman's sister I ought on no account to keep her here. Don't you remember?"
"Quite well. But am I not right in supposing that you will keep her? You see, I know you better now than I did then."
"If she liked being here—if it made her happy—I would keep her in defiance of the whole world."
"But as it is——?"
She came to him with a cup of cold coffee in her hands. He took it, and stirred it mechanically.
"As it is," she said, "she is very ill, and has to get well again before we begin to decide things. Perhaps," she added, looking up at him wistfully, "this illness will change her?"