“A ticket for you to Daniel’s concert,” said Eleanore, radiant with joy, and handed her the green card of admission.
Gertrude looked at Eleanore; and she wanted to look at Daniel. But her heavy glance, slowly rising from the floor, barely reached his face before it returned to its downward position, aggrieved and pained. Then she shook her head, and said: “A ticket for the concert? For me? Are you serious, Eleanore?” Again she shook her head, amazed and indignant. Whereupon she went to the window, leaned her arm against the cross bars, and pressed her head against her arm.
Daniel followed her with looks of glowing anger. “You can take sheep to the slaughter,” he said, “you can throw thieves in a dungeon, you can transport lepers to a hospital for incurables, but you cannot force an emotional girl to listen to music.”
He became silent; a pause ensued. Tortured at the thought that Daniel’s eyes were riveted on her back, Gertrude turned around, went to the stove, sat down, and pressed her cheek against the Dutch tiles.
Daniel took two steps, stood by her side, and exclaimed: “But suppose I request that you go? Suppose my peace of mind or something else of importance to the world, consolation, liberation, or improvement, depends on your going? Suppose I request that you go for one of these reasons? What then?”
Gertrude had become as pale as death. She looked at him for a moment, then turned her face to one side, drew up her shoulders as if she were shivering with cold, and said: “Well—then—then—I’ll go. But I will be sorry for it ... sorry for it.”
Eleanore was a witness to this scene. Her eyes, wide open when it began, grew larger and larger as it advanced through its successive stages. As she looked at Daniel a kindly, languishing moisture came to them, and she smiled.
Daniel, however, had become vexed. He mumbled a good-bye and left. Eleanore went to the window and watched him as he ran across the square, holding his hat with both hands as a shield against the driving wind.
“He is an amusing fellow,” she said, “an amusing fellow.”
She then lifted her eyes to the clouds, whose swift flight above the church roof pleased her.