At first I could say nothing. I was gazing steadily at the little fair head--her child, and her very image.
She seemed to notice it, and, as if to disguise her first feeling of embarrassment, she bent over the little fellow, saying, "Go and shake hands prettily with the gentleman, Joachimchen. He is a dear uncle, and it is very kind in him to have sought out your mother again."
But the child clung timidly to her arm, and would not approach me.
"Yes, it is I, Frau Luise," I stammered at last, in some confusion. "I wanted, as my way brought me near you--. But you are looking so well, Frau Luise. How do you do? You are happy, I see--and the dear child--does Uncle Joachim know that he bears his name? He would surely be pleased."
"Won't you sit down, Herr Johannes?" she replied. "The sofa over yonder is very uncomfortable. Bring a chair, and let us sit near the window. And now tell me whence you have come and what has brought you to us."
I did as she requested, while she resumed her interrupted work and listened intently. The child had pushed his toys aside, and, when I held out my hand, shyly laid his soft little fingers in it. But I soon drew him close to my side, and, ere ten minutes had passed, he was sitting on my knee, patiently letting me stroke his hair while I described my life.
True, I dared not make even the most distant allusion, to the one thought around which everything else had turned in the course of the years, and which had now brought me here. But women are sensitive, and have the gift of reading in our eyes and catching from broken tones the very thing we are most anxious to conceal.
She, however, did not do this.
"I am heartily glad to see you again at last, dear Herr Johannes," she replied, when I had paused. "I have always valued your friendship, and was very sorry that you had perhaps formed a false opinion of me when I disappeared so suddenly. If you stay with us a few days, you will see that I could not have done otherwise. My husband, too, will be glad to make your acquaintance. I have told him about you. True, you will not be able to judge correctly of his talent as an artist. His surroundings are not worthy of him, and he can not appear in his best parts in these little towns. But you will learn to value him as a man."
I made no reply. I could not tell her that I greatly doubted the latter, and did not even desire it. My aversion to her husband was as much a part of my reverence for her as the thorn is a portion of the rose.