She turned sharply on her heel and began very calmly to walk up the hill, no longer as if to flee, but merely because she had spoken her last word. Schnetz had always had a secret liking for her, though he had no very high opinion of her understanding or her virtue. But he could not help feeling a certain respect for her as she had just shown herself to him.
"She knows what she wants, at all events," he growled, "and won't allow herself to be deceived, not even by her own poor heart. There is good blood in the little red fox."
Upon returning to Schoepf he exerted himself to the utmost to convince the old gentleman that, for the present, it was useless to try and do anything. But he promised to do his best to reconcile the girl to the thought that she could no longer be her own mistress, but must consent to be taken under the protection of a loving grandfather. It touched him to see how much the old man was encouraged and cheered by the thought that she would come to him in the end. He even began to make plans for the external arrangements of their future life together. As if this were a matter that would not brook the slightest delay, he could not be prevailed upon to stay even until the heat of the day was over. He must go back at once and look for larger and more cheerful lodgings, and must buy some furniture, so that he would be prepared to receive his grandchild just as soon as she felt like coming to live with him. Besides, he did not want to be the cause of the poor child's wandering about in the woods any longer, for it was clear she would not enter the house again until he had gone.
Schnetz accompanied him through the park. When they were almost at the gate he asked:
"Don't you propose to take any steps to find out the whereabouts of the child's father? Or do you know that he has died since all this happened?"
The old man stood still, and his eyes took on that stern expression which had scared off Zenz that night in the street.
"The scoundrel!" he cried in a loud voice, passionately striking the gravel path with the umbrella that he always carried in summer. "The miserable, perjured villain! Can you seriously suppose that I would let myself be outdone in pride by my dead daughter, who would have nothing to do with the author of all her misery, since he appeared to have forgotten her? Do you think me capable of such a thing as sharing this living legacy of my daughter, that I have just found again as if by a miracle, with that robber of women's honor--admitting even that he would not now choose to deny all share in it? I would rather--"