"I wish that it did," she responded. "Then at least people would, from fear of his horsewhip, have more caution. But she knows too well that she can trade on the loftiness of his nature, and so she plays her game quite openly under his very eyes."
With bent neck, and his breathing thick and laboured, he leant against the wall muttering inarticulate sounds. He could not grasp it. That he should be a dupe, an object of contempt ... the noblest, the most refined of men! It was more than his thick honest head could take in. Then fury flamed up in him.
"I wish I had her here between my fingers," he bellowed. "I would wring her neck! I would wring her neck!"
With his hands grappling the air, his nostrils dilating, and his eyes red, he raged about the room. It was well for pretty Felicitas that at that moment she was safely hidden from his sight.
Johanna watched him with a sour smile. "It would serve her right," said she. "But what can you do? You are powerless before her."
"I? What do you take me for? Am I a cur? A slave of women? Her charm is for me completely broken, years ago. To-day I should confront her only as a judge."
Again she shrugged her shoulders, but this time compassionately. "You poor boy! She would only have to ask, 'Who has made me what I am?' and your occupation of the judgment-seat would come to an end."
He sank into a chair, the tears falling fast over his sunburnt cheeks, in which excitement had dug deep furrows. He sat motionless, crushed, and annihilated.
She drew nearer to him and wiped his forehead, from which the perspiration poured.
"Poor, poor boy!" she said; and then, close to his ear, "I think I understand what can be done."