"I have been expecting you, dear Leo," she said, "ever since that day we met again. You must have been saying to yourself all the time that it was not the same between us as it used to be, yet you have not come for an explanation. It is your own fault that you have had to carry about with you the consciousness of being estranged from your sister. But, all the same, you have managed to go your way laughing and whistling. That is the first thing I have to reproach you with."
He felt his heart harden under her words. Did she want to impress upon him the superiority of her mind over his own? And as a sign that he was not the man to be easily intimidated, he took his chair, twirled it three times on its castors, then seated himself straddle-legged upon it, and leaned his elbows on the back.
"You will permit me to make myself comfortable, I trust?" he said. "One's persuasive arguments are not so likely to be effective if one begins too ceremoniously."
A haughty lowering of her lids showed him that she was not inclined to tolerate his roughness without protest.
"Oh, please," she said, "don't put any restraint on yourself because of me. Why should you? You have accustomed the others to expect the manners of the bar at Halewitz."
"At Halewitz the manners which I approve shall not be criticised, dear Hannah," he replied; "and, if they seem too coarse for you, I advise you to withdraw to our aristocratic dower-house, where you will not be in the least troubled by them."
"Does that mean, Leo, that you will drive me and my stepdaughter from under your roof?"
"It means, Hannah, that I will be master in my own house, and that I have no desire to let my temper be spoilt by the whims of parsons and women. For my good temper is very necessary to me, more so than you are."
She folded her hands. "What has come to you, Leo?" she cried, staring at him.
He laughed in her face. "Come to me? Nothing, except that I am now an ordinary healthy-minded fellow, who intends to do his work in life without being dictated to by any woman, sister, or any one else."