"My dearest Anna, that is entirely your own idea," the Countess Brock asserted. "Every one knows that you cannot appreciate any tenderness of affection because your own heart is clad in armour, but you can never convince me that your daughter-in-law did not love the Pole passionately. In the first place, her passion for him was the only possible motive for her marriage; how else could it have occurred to her?--bah!--nonsense! and in the second place, Strachinsky read me her letters,--letters written soon after their marriage. He carries these proofs everywhere with him: his devotion to his dead wife is most touching. Poor man! he wept when he read the letters to us, and we wept too. I had invited a few friends, and he spent two evenings in reading them aloud to us. When he had finished he kissed the letters, and said, with a deep sigh, 'This is all that is left to me of my poor, adored Emma,' and then he told us of the tender relations that had existed between himself and his step-daughter, until she, when a brilliant lot fell to her share, had cast him aside--like an old shoe-string, as he expressed it. I do not say that such a connection is the most desirable, but on choisit ses amis, on subit ses parents. Certain duties must be conscientiously fulfilled, and, my dear Erika, be sure that I advise you for your good when I beg you to be friends with your step-father: you owe him a certain amount of filial affection. He is here in Bayreuth, and has requested me to effect a reconciliation between you and him."
Erika made no reply. She sat motionless, speechless. The 'fairy' played her last trump. "People are talking about your unjustifiable treatment of him," she said; "but that can all be arranged. May I tell him that you are ready to receive him, Anna?"
The Countess Lenzdorff rose to her feet. "Indeed!" she exclaimed, with an outburst of indignation; "you wish me to receive a man who, for the sake of exciting sympathy, reads aloud to your invited guests the letters of his dead wife? What do you take me for? I will have him turned out of doors if he dares to show his face here! And I have no more time at present to listen to you, Elise: I am going to pay a visit to Hedwig Norbin. Will you come with me?"
"With the greatest pleasure!" cried the 'wicked fairy,' decidedly cowed.
"Bring me my bonnet and gloves from my room, my child," her grandmother said to Erika, and when the girl brought them to her she kissed her on the cheek.
Goswyn had risen to depart with the two ladies. Erika looked after him dully as, after taking a formal leave of her, he had reached the door of the room. Then she suddenly followed him. "Goswyn," she murmured, "stay for one moment!"
He stayed; the door closed after the others, and they were alone.
What did she want of him? He did not know: she herself did not know. He would advise her, rid her of the weight upon her heart: her old habit of appealing to him in all difficulties returned to her in full force. The time was past for her when she could relieve herself in any distressing agitation by a burst of tears: she sat there white and silent, plucking at the folds of her black lace dress.
At last, passing her hand across her forehead once or twice, she began in a forced monotone, "You know that I idolized my mother; I have told you about her; perhaps you remember----"
"I do not think I have forgotten much that you have ever told me," he interrupted her.