Miranda sighed, while her knitting needles began to move nervously.
The Kreisgerichtsrath shrugged his shoulders, and drew figures in the sand; he knew well that for his friend he played the part that in sham-fights the appointed enemy does, against whom all manœuvres are directed. Yet he was not prepared for so vigorous an onslaught as that with which the Regierungsrath surprised him.
"Indeed, it is impossible to bear with you any longer," continued the latter. "You contradict one constantly; do you then, think that it makes intercourse pleasant in such heat? I have put a seal upon politics--I do not allude to that tender theme any more; can one give greater proofs of peaceable intentions? I am contented with everything, with general assemblies, even, for anything that I care, with the French revolution; I allow it all to be discharged over me like torrents of rain, and do not even put up an umbrella before it; but you seek quarrels, you do! Can there be anything more harmless than the lines in a thermometer to which the mercurial column extends its tongue; no, even for that the alarm-drum must be beaten. Quarrelling, everlasting quarrelling, here where one ought to recruit oneself; I can bear it no longer!"
A violent fit of coughing closed this bayonet charge upon his patient friend.
The Kreisgerichtsrath rose with great calmness and said--
"I can give no better proofs of my peaceable intentions than by retiring," and he disappeared upon the footpath that led to the valley.
This retreat did not much improve Kalzow's temper, for he felt it to be his own moral defeat. Much excited, he walked to and fro, and was not disinclined to make the only person who could still be called to account, responsible for all the evil which lay in the air to-day; yet, a glance at her, and the challenging manner in which she handled her knitting needles, proved sufficiently to him that this fort was fully armed and ensured against any surprise, and that in an attack upon it he should be running great danger.
Therefore, he sat down again beside his wife, after he had soothed his internal excitement by several pinches of snuff, and commenced a peaceful conversation.
"What has become of Eva?"
"The girl wanted to read something, and then water the flowers."