Consequently, when she found that ever since that stolen kiss on Christmas night, innocent though it was, the picture of the robber rose up before her oftener than before, each time causing a certain ashamed surprise to creep over her virgin heart, she fought against this weakness with all her power, and took pains to exaggerate, in her own mind, the faults and absurdities of this gay deceiver. But, in doing so, she was obliged to occupy her thoughts with him to an uncommon extent, and she often caught herself studying his praiseworthy qualities with far greater fondness than his laughable ones. Unfortunately, she had plenty of spare time for these studies; for, as Schnetz expressed it, she was enjoying a vacation from idolatry since Jansen's and Julie's departure. And, finally, what contributed as much as anything else to make her heart more tender, was the just fear that things were going badly with her neighbor, and might end seriously for him some fine day, unless some one came to his aid.
She positively breathed easier when she discovered that he was hungry and cold, and began quite cheerfully to revolve in her mind how she could best assist him.
She took good care to say nothing about it to his friends. To her alone he should owe his rescue, and that without having the slightest suspicion of it. She herself could hardly be said to be swimming in luxury; that which she earned was just sufficient to carry her through the world respectably; for she had the greatest horror of anything in her art that had a taint of fraud about it, and was exceedingly conscientious with regard to such matters. More than once she had taken back a picture, with which the person who had ordered it expressed himself as quite content, merely because it did not satisfy herself.
But the suspiciously jolly air with which Rosenbusch met her on the stairs, the ominous stillness next door, where the stove no longer sang its morning song, nor the flute summoned the mice to the dance, so cut her to the heart, that she would not have hesitated even to have got into debt, if by so doing she could have saved her friend from bankruptcy.
It was a sunny morning in April; she had accompanied little Frances and her foster-mother to the station, and had thus given up the last thing she had to exercise her sentimental devotion upon; and now she walked slowly to her studio, firmly determined to seek consolation in her art. But on arriving up stairs, where a fresh canvas was already awaiting her, she made a mistake in the door, and, instead of going into her own workshop, knocked at the battle-painter's, of whom she had not caught a glimpse for several days.