"What have you done?"
"Countess," cried Herr Balzer, in the same pathetic voice, "I love my wife; she has greatly erred, it is true, but I love her still, and I cannot give up the hope of reclaiming her."
The countess shrugged her shoulders, almost imperceptibly, and cast a look full of contempt upon the exchange agent.
"I do not wish for a separation,--I would rather forgive her," he continued, in a tearful voice; "and I have come, therefore, to speak to you, countess, to consult with you,--to implore you to--"
"What?" asked the countess.
"You see, I thought," said Herr Balzer, turning his hat round and round more quickly, "if you,--Vienna is now a very sad place to reside in,--if you would go to your country estates, or into Switzerland, or to the Italian lakes, far away from here, and if you would take Lieutenant von Stielow with you, he would leave Vienna, and could not continue to have any intercourse with my wife: I too would take her away somewhere for a time. After his marriage with the lovely countess, the young couple would naturally visit Baron von Stielow's family for a time; he would forget my wife,--all would come straight, if we only work together at the same plan!"
He spoke slowly, and with much hesitation, often interrupting himself, and casting stolen looks now at the mother, now at the daughter. Before he had finished speaking, Clara had sprung to her feet, her eyes, red with weeping, were fixed on him with burning anger; and as he concluded, she looked at her mother with anxious suspense, her lips half opened, as if she almost feared her mother might not give the right reply.
Countess Frankenstein drew herself up, with a movement full of pride, and said in a tone of cold contempt:
"I thank you for your communication, sir; it has opened my eyes in time. I regret I cannot assist you in the way you wish, to re-establish your domestic happiness. You must understand it cannot be the task of a Countess Frankenstein to cure the Baron Stielow of an unworthy passion, nor can she consent to continue an engagement which the baron has not respected. You must find some other means of reclaiming your wife."
Clara's eyes expressed her perfect approval of her mother's words; with a proud movement she turned her back upon Herr Balzer, and, suppressing her tears with a great effort, she looked out of one of the large panes of glass in the high window of the salon.