Gesa drew her onto his knees, dried her tears, and quieted her with playful caresses. "She lives too isolated; the least thing excites her, father?" said he, stroking her cheek. "We must find some amusement for her."
The "droewige Herr," looked down gloomily.
About three o'clock de Sterny mounted the stairs of his hotel. He had been honored and flattered exactly as much as ever, but he felt out of spirits.
"Every street urchin knows my name now, and the crossing sweepers show each other the celebrated de Sterny when I pass. But when I die, what will remain of me! Nothing but a few wretched piano pieces, which they will laugh at after my death."
The songs of the violinist rang in his ears. He shivered. He thought of the beautiful girl, and passed his hand across his forehead.
"Hm!--the danger of a quiet family life does not threaten him from that quarter. She sleeps as yet; but she has inherited all the passionateness of her mother and all the nervousness of her father. How beautiful she is! How beautiful!"
XIV
It was about this time that de Sterny began to be restlessly ambitious. His playing changed. He began to take on affectations. He began to pound. This enraptured the masses; the critics pronounced it "a magnificent development," and he himself was disgusted.
An icy crust covered the gutter in the Rue Ravestein, long icicles hung from the arms of the great crucifix, and on the windows of the little green salon the frost painted his chilly flowers; but Annette's hands were always hot now, and her lips burning red. Her walk had grown slow and careless, her movements dreamy and gliding. Her eyes gazed into the distance. Instead of teasing wilfulness, or childlike winningness, she met her lover with apathetic compliance, sometimes with repellent irritation. Then would come hours when she hung upon him passionately, begged him with tears not to be angry with her, and seemed as though she could not show him love and tenderness enough.
He did not ponder very deeply over her strange contradictory nature, but simply forgave her, as a sick child.