But before Eleanore could reply, reassured by her sister’s astonished behaviour, and angry at herself for having suspected Eleanore of a falsehood, she hurried back to her own bed. She had come to think more and more of her sister every day.
“How she must love him,” thought Eleanore to herself, and buried her smiling face in the pillow.
VII
“Wait for me at the fountain,” said Eleanore to her companion, as she crossed the market place in Eschenbach at midday: “I’ll call for you as soon as everything has been discussed.”
The coachman pointed out the little house of the widow Nothafft.
A woman with a stern face and unusually large eyebrows asked her what she wanted as she entered the little shop, which smelled of vinegar and cheese.
Eleanore replied that she would like to talk with her for a few minutes quite undisturbed and alone.
The profound seriousness of Marian’s features, which resembled more than anything else an incurable suffering, did not disappear. She closed the shop and took Eleanore into the living room, and, without saying a word, pointed to one chair and took another herself.
Above the leather sofa hung the picture of Gottfried Nothafft. Eleanore looked at it for a long while.