And while the words that Richard was reading beat monotonously upon her ear, and her fingers played with the locks of Elly's hair--she resisted for the last time; she resolved that she would be steadfast--that she would do no more than see Emil once again, and that, like her own mother who had died long ago, and like all the other good women she knew--her cousin in Vienna, Frau Mahlmann, Frau Martin, her sister-in-law, and ... yes, certainly Frau Rupius as well--she would belong only to him who made her his wife. As soon, however, as she thought of that, the idea flashed through her mind, like lightning: if he himself...if Emil.... But she was afraid of the thought, and banished it from her. Not with such bold dreams as these would she go to meet Emil. He, the great artist, and she, a poor widow with a child...no, no!--she would see him once again ... in the Museum of course, at the Dutch gallery ... once only, and that for the last time, and she would tell him that she did not wish for anything else than to see him that once. With a smile of satisfaction she pictured to herself his somewhat disappointed face; and, as if practising beforehand for the scene, she knitted her brow and assumed a stern cast of countenance, and had the words ready on her lips to say to him: "Oh, no, Emil, if you think that...." But she must take care not to say it in quite too harsh a tone, in order that Emil might not, as on that previous occasion ... twelve years before! ... cease to plead after only the one attempt. She intended that he should beg a second time, a third time--ah, Heaven knew, she intended that he should continue to plead until she gave way.... For she felt, there in the midst of all those good, respectable, virtuous people, with whom, indeed, she would soon no longer be numbered, that she would give way the moment he first asked her. She was only going to Vienna to be _his_, and after that, if needs must be, to die.