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Updated: June 2, 2025
For Johanna was always in a tremble lest Ephie should become spoiled; and thoughtless Ephie could, at times, cause her a most subtle torture, by being prettily insincere, by assuming false coquettish airs, or by seeming to have private thoughts which she did not confide to her sister.
Cayhill, who for some time had considered Ephie fondly, said: "I can't understand you thinking she isn't well, Joan. I never saw her look better." Ephie went crimson. "Now what has Joan been saying about me?" she asked angrily. Johanna had left the table, and was reading on the sofa. "I only said what I repeated to yourself, Ephie. That I didn't think you were looking well."
The young man could not but somewhat lamely agree with Johanna that it was better to let the matter end thus: for he felt that towards the Cayhills he had been guilty of a breach of trust such as it is difficult to forgive. At the same time, he was humanly hurt that Ephie would not even say good-bye to him.
She hardly greeted him, and instead, commenced talking about the weather. "Then you had a pleasant walk?" asked Johanna in a preoccupied fashion, without looking up from the letter she was writing; and before Maurice could speak, Ephie, fondling her sister's neck, answered: "How could it be anything but sweet after the rain?"
His consternation at the discovery was such that he changed colour. The others, however, were both too engrossed to notice it. Ephie grew scarlet, but continued to rattle on, covering his silence. "Well, perhaps to-day it was a little too far," she admitted. "But mummy, I won't have you say I'm not strong. Why, Herr Becker is always telling me how full my tone is getting. Yes indeed.
But Ephie, who was accompanying him to the door, made a face of laughing stupefaction behind her sister's back, and went out on the landing with him, to whisper: "What HAVE you been doing to Joan?" at which remark, and at Maurice's blank face, she laughed so immoderately that she was forced to go down the stairs with him, for fear Joan should hear her; and, in the house-door, she stood, a white-clad little figure, and waved her hand to him until he turned the corner.
Now he felt that he must see Ephie at once, not only to secure her word that she would come out with him, the following day, but also to read from her frank eyes and childish lips the assurance of her innocence, or, at least, the impossibility of her guilt.
Yet, when she looked back on his visit of the previous evening, she could not but be struck by the strangeness of his demeanour: his distracted silence, his efforts to speak to Ephie alone, and the expression with which he had watched her. And Ephie? what of her?
Herr Kleefeld leaned both hands on the counter, and disconcerted her by staring at her over his spectacles. "Mr. Schilsky? Is it very important?" he said with a leer, as if he were making a joke. "Why, yes, indeed," replied Ephie timidly.
But he could not summon up any very lively feelings of regret. Johanna had not touched him deeply; she had left him as cool as he had no doubt left her; neither had found the key to the other. Her chief attraction for him had been her devotion to Ephie; and now, having been put to the test, this was found wanting. She had been wounded in her own pride and self-love, and could not forgive.
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