Conversation did not flow easily again, and Hertha, before she had emptied her second cup of coffee, ran off as if she were a hunted animal. When she reached her room, everything seemed to swim before her in a damp mist.
She went to her glass and said to herself, "I really didn't mean to be rude."
Elly came after her. She scarcely knew at first what to say as she stood there in her finery, looking so round and pretty with her pink cheeks and innocent blue eyes. At last she said--
"You were simply odious. I could never have been so odious;" and she glanced down lovingly at her ribbon bows.
VI
Leo stayed alone with his mother. The morning sunlight danced on the coffee table's snowy damask, the silver hot-water kettle hummed and hissed, and the smoke from Leo's cigar rose lightly in transparent rings to the ceiling.
"I don't know how it is," said the old lady, sighing and stroking back the wavy grey hair from her forehead, "it may be wrong of me, but I can't be as happy this morning as I ought to be. First it is one thing and then another."
"Never mind, little mother," he said; "it will soon be all right. My goods have certainly been squandered.... No, no, I don't blame you for it. If any one's to blame, I am. What did I keep away so long for? Ulrich wrote strongly enough. But I was an ass and would not heed. There's time yet, thank God! I have not unlearnt the way to work, as that shrewish little girl hinted just now."
"You are unjust to her," the mother said, defending Hertha hotly. "One should not take everything young girls say too literally. You should look into their hearts instead. And this young heart, Leo, I know for a fact, is full of you--you alone and no other."
"How do I come to be so honoured?" he asked with a laugh.