The Breaking of the Storm by Friedrich Spielhagen

Meta carried out her heroic design without allowing herself to be intimidated by anything, even by Aunt Rikchen's spectacles, "And they are no joke," said Meta, when in the evening she reported the result of the first sitting. "I could easier hold out against Baroness Kniehreche's eyeglasses. Behind those there is nothing but a pair of old blind eyes, of which I feel anything but fear; but when Aunt Rikchen allows her spectacles to slip to the end of her nose, she then begins really to see so clearly, that one would feel anxious and uneasy if one had not so good a conscience. And do you know, Elsa, that something particular must have occurred between you and the Schmidts -- what, I am quite in the dark about, as the good lady mixes everything together higgledy-piggledy; but she is very angry with you Werbens, as papa is with the Griebens, our neighbours, who are always trespassing on his boundaries, he says; and you must have been trespassing on the Schmidts, and that is the reason, you may depend upon it, why Reinhold has got so distant. We shall hear nothing from him; but Aunt Rikchen never can keep anything to herself, and we are already the best of friends. She says I am a good girl, and that after all I really had nothing to do with it, and the dove who brought the olive branch from the earth did not know either what it had in its beak: and then I saw that Reinhold, who was in the studio with me, looked at her, and Herr Anders also looked quite grave, and glanced again at Reinhold. They three know something, that much is clear, and I will find it out, you may depend upon it."

But Meta did not find it out, and could not do so, as Aunt Rikchen did not herself know the exact state of affairs, and the others were most careful to keep her in ignorance. Meta's communication therefore by no means contributed to Elsa's peace of mind, and if Elsa had at first, at least, had the happiness of hearing of Reinhold through Meta, how he had come to the studio and kept her company for a long time, and what he had said, and how he had looked, even this source of consolation was now decreasing, and seemed gradually to be drying up altogether. One day he had scarcely been there for five minutes, another time only just passed through the studio, a third time Meta had not seen him at all, a fourth time she could not even say whether she had seen him or not. Elsa thought she knew the meaning of this apparent negligence. Meta had found out something which she could not tell her, or had in some other way become convinced of the hopelessness of her love; and the ample details which she gave from her other experiences and observations in the studio, only served to conceal her embarrassment.