"It is not possible!" says Sonia. "He was betrothed. Do you then believe that a half-way respectable man would be capable of such an action? Ah, it is horrible, horrible! Poor Nikolai!"
Nita does not hear her.
"My father insists that I shall go to Vienna with him to-morrow," begins Sophie, whom nothing can long rob of her inward equipoise. "Will you let your maid help me pack?"
Nita does not hear.
After a while Sophie leaves the room,
Nita glows with burning heat. She cannot bear the warm room, and goes out on the terrace. A sharp breeze sobs in the trees of the park, and has a refreshing effect upon her.
Why can she not forget? She has emerged blameless from the trial. How can the affair further concern her? Another would have simply shaken off the remembrance of this unpleasant experience. But she was not like others. From childhood she had occupied one of those strange positions which cause in all young people left to themselves a tendency to strongly exaggerated feelings.
Her father died young. Her mother never ceased to mourn him, and after his death completely withdrew from the world. Except a few summer months which she regularly passed with her eldest brother, Karl Bärenburg's father, she lived year in and year out in a picturesque villa an hour's journey from Vienna.
Nita grew up solitary, under the influence of such a mother and the instruction of Miss Wilmot. The great passion of her youth was music. She secretly cherished the wish to become an artiste and astonish the world with her performances. Sunk in an enthusiastic study of the art, and reading all that is poetic and unworldly, she grew up without girl friends, without all childish amusements. The great wealth of her stormy young heart remained untouched.
The legendary fame of the devil's violinist penetrated even to her. She saw a picture of him--the strange face that was not handsome, and which one could never forget if one had once seen it, made a deep impression on her young mind. From that time she worshipped the strange musician, whom she had never heard and never seen; thought of him, dreamed of him, wrote enthusiastic childish letters to him--which she never sent--and sang his songs. Her mother, who was still more given to exaggeration than her daughter, and just as little worldly wise, smiled at this enthusiasm and gave Nita Lensky's picture for a birthday gift. Nita placed it on her writing-table and daily garlanded it with fresh flowers as long as she could find one out-doors.