The child was crying, and his left cheek was red and swollen.
"Papa, mamma slapped me, and said she could not bear me," complained the little fellow.
"She struck you because you are the son of 'the certain Lanzberg,'" murmured Felix with fearful bitterness. "Perhaps others will also make you do penance for that yet!"
XXV.
The gulf which malicious fortune and Elsa's overwrought nerves had opened between the two married people had not lessened, but on the contrary had daily become deeper, colder, and broader.
Erwin found no explanation for his wife's changed manner; after some time he ceased to seek one. His was no brooding nature, and had no time to become one. That Elsa could be jealous of Linda any more than of a pretty work of art or an amusing book which unsuitably claimed a great deal of his attention, Erwin had never understood.
"Poor Elsa, she is worried about Felix," he said to himself; "she will come to her senses again," and for several days he kept away from her, to give her time to calm herself. But three, four days passed, and she still had the same pale face and stiff manner. Then he tried a different plan, and once when they chanced to be alone together--it happened very seldom--he laid his hand under her chin and began: "Well, mouse----"
But she did not lean her cheek against his hand as formerly when she was remorseful, neither did she resist his caress, as when she was refractory, but simply tolerated him as if she were a statue of stone or bronze. And she looked at him so coldly that all the loving words which he had in readiness faded from his memory and his hand sank down from her chin.
He turned away from her with impatience and irritation. It was not the first time that she had been unjust and capricious to him. Her only fault was an easily awakened irritability; but formerly her vexation had been of short duration, and her bad mood had soon dissolved into the most remorseful tenderness.
She had never begged his forgiveness after she had made a scene. Her proud obstinacy was not capable of that; she was not one of those sympathetic, dependent women who like to make little blunders so as to be able to coquet with their charming penitence. No! But an anxious, half-suppressed smile hesitated on her lips, when he returned to her several hours after the vexatious scene, and he could see by the book which she was reading, by the gown which she had put on, by the dinner which was ordered, how she had thought of him during his absence.