"Surely you will do that—only that—for me."
"There isn't anything to see," she wept, "there really isn't. It is dreadful of me, but I can't help it."
"Well, but look at me."
"Oh, Axel, what is the use of looking at you?" she cried in despair; and pulled her handkerchief away and did it.
He searched her face for a moment in silence, as though he thought that if only he could read her soul he might understand it better than she did herself. Those dear eyes—they were full of pity, full of distress; but search as he might he could find nothing else.
He turned away without a word.
"Don't, don't be tragic," she begged, anxiously following him a few steps. "If only you are not tragic we shall still be able to be friends——"
But he did not look round.
A servant with a tray was outside coming in to take the coffee away. "Oh," exclaimed Anna, seeing that it was impossible to hide her tear-stained face from the girl's calm scrutiny, "oh, Johanna, the poor baroness—she is so ill—it is so dreadful——" And she dropped into a chair and hid herself in the cushions, weeping hysterically with an abandonment of woe that betokened a quite extraordinary affection for the baroness.
"Gott, die arme Baronesse," sympathised Johanna perfunctorily. To herself she remarked, "This very moment has the Miss refused to marry gnädiger Herr."