"Yes." Her voice is hard and dull.
"And besides," he asks, "have you nothing else to say to him?" He looks at her as if to read her soul.
She returns his look with eyes in whose brown depths the tears so lately shed are still glistening. She knows that she is putting the knife to her own throat, but what matters it? The gathered bitterness of years overflows her heart and rises to her lips.
"And besides,"--she speaks slowly and provokingly,--"besides, I should like to tell him that I consider his conduct cold-hearted, petty, and childish; that after he has tormented to death two people, my father and my mother, he might, in his old age, attempt by love and kindness to make some amends for his wickedness, instead of going on weaving fresh misery out of his wretched hatred and obstinacy, and--that never whilst I live will I make one advance towards him!" She bows slightly, turns, and leaves him. He looks after her graceful figure as it slowly makes its way among the underbrush and is finally lost to sight.
"A splendid creature! What a carriage! what a figure! and what a bewitching face! No wonder she has turned the brain of that silly lad at Komaritz. He knows what's what. The child shows race," he mutters; "she's a genuine Leskjewitsch. All Fritz.--Poor Fritz!"
The old man passes his hand across his forehead, and then gazes after her once more. Is that her blue dress glimmering among the trees? No, it is a bit of sky. She has vanished.
Zdena manages to slip up to her own room unobserved when she reaches Zirkow. She makes her first appearance at table, her hair charmingly arranged, dressed as carefully as usual, talkative, gay. The most acute observer would hardly suspect that a few hours previously she had all but cried her eyes out.
"And did you bring us the piece of news from Dobrotschau?" asks Frau Rosamunda during the soup, which Zdena leaves untasted.
"Oh, yes. And most extraordinary it is," she replies. "Paula Harfink is betrothed."
"To whom?"