Erika started. Countess Lenzdorff said, calmly, "Indeed! I pity you from my heart; but, since I had no share in bringing such a misfortune upon you, I owe you no further reparation."
"H'm! you need not pity me. He interested me extremely. You and your grand-daughter have seen fit simply to ignore him; but you do not know what people say."
"Nor does it interest me in the least."
"Well, you may not care about the verdict of society, but it is comfortable to stand well with one's conscience, as Dorothea said to me the other day."
"Indeed! did she say that to you?" Countess Anna murmured in an undertone.
"Yes, and she was indignant at the way in which you have treated the poor man."
"Is it any affair of hers?" Countess Lenzdorff asked, sharply.
"Oh, she is quite right; I am entirely of her opinion," the 'fairy' went on; then, turning to Erika, "I cannot help remonstrating with you. He certainly cared for you like a father until you were seventeen. He was a man whom your mother loved passionately."
Erika sat as if turned to marble: every word spoken by the old 'fairy' was like a blow in the face to her.
The Countess Lenzdorff's eyes flashed angrily. "Do not meddle with what you do not in the least understand, Elise!" she exclaimed. "As for my daughter-in-law's passion for that stupid weakling, it was made up of pity on the one hand for a man whom she came to know wounded and ill, and on the other hand of antagonism towards me. The fact is, I provoked her; the marriage would never have taken place if I had not most injudiciously set myself in opposition to Emma's betrothal to the Pole. Her second marriage was a tragedy, the result of obstinacy, not of love."