Anna Maria made a negative gesture, and laid her hand on the door-knob, and then turned her head. "Marieken!"
The girl came back.
"It is nothing—only go!" She then hastily turned away, and shut and bolted her door at once.
"She wishes to be alone with her thoughts," remarked Aunt Rosamond at the supper table, where she and Klaus sat, right and left of the absent one's place. Klaus did not reply at once, but looked at that place and said at length: "So it will always be, soon!" And the old lady nodded sadly; she knew not what to reply, and a secret anxiety about the future stole over her, since she had seen that Klaus still bore the old wound which he had received many years ago. She had supposed it healed long since.
The next morning Anna Maria went as usual, with her bunch of keys, through kitchen and cellar. She was pale, and her orders sounded shorter and less friendly than they had of late. Only to Klaus she gave a friendly smile, but it was forced, and her eyes had no share in it. She looked over accounts with him for two hours, and, though he was distracted and restless, the results were perfectly correct. Aunt Rosamond alone was alarmed at the girl's appearance, but she did not venture to ask any questions. Anna Maria was as icily cold as often heretofore.
The next day, toward evening, Klaus came into Aunt Rosamond's room. The old lady had just hung up Felix Leonhard's portrait again, after carefully making fast the broken cord.
"Well, who was right, Aunt Rose?" he asked. He was standing beside her, and she saw that his face had grown very red, and that his whole being was stirred.
"Right? In what, Klaus?"
"In your assertion about Anna Maria. She does not love him!"
"Did she say so? Oh, well, it doesn't follow at all that a girl has spoken the truth, if she says she does not love a certain person, does not even like him. I have experienced the contrary a hundred times; those who talk so hide a warm affection under cold words."