It seemed to Bertha that he had quite forgotten that he was with her. She felt slightly jealous at the interest which the paintings roused in him. Suddenly they found themselves before one of the pictures which she knew from Herr Rupius' portfolio. Emil wanted to pass on, but she stopped and greeted it, as she might an old acquaintance. "Exquisite!" she exclaimed. "Emil, isn't it beautiful? On the whole, I greatly admire Falckenborg's pictures." He looked at her, somewhat surprised. She became embarrassed, and tried to go on talking. "Because such an immense quantity--because the whole world--" She felt that this was dishonest, even that she was robbing some one who could not defend himself; and accordingly she added, repentantly, as it were: "You must know, there's a man living in our little town who has an album, or rather a portfolio, of engravings, and that's how I know the picture. His name is Rupius, he is very infirm; just fancy, he is quite paralysed." She felt obliged to tell Emil all this, for it seemed to her as though his eyes were unceasingly questioning her. "That might be a chapter, too," he said, with a smile, when she had come to an end; then he added more softly, as though ashamed of his indelicate joke: "There must certainly also be gentlemen in that little town who are not paralysed." She felt that she had to take poor Herr Rupius under her protection. "He is a very unhappy man," she said, and, remembering how she had sat with him on the balcony the previous day, a feeling of great compassion seized her. But Emil was following his own train of thought. "Yes," he said; "that is what I should really like to know--what experiences you have had." "You know them, already." "I mean, since the death of your husband." She understood now what he meant, and was a little offended. "I live only for my boy," she said, with decision. "I do not allow men to make love to me. I am quite respectable." He had to laugh it the comically serious way in which she made this confession of virtue. For her part, she felt at once that she ought to have expressed herself differently, and so she laughed, too. "How long are you going to stay, then, in Vienna?" asked Emil. "Till to-morrow, or the day after to-morrow." "So short a time as that? And where are you staying? I should like to know." "With my cousin," she replied. Something restrained her from mentioning that she had put up at an hotel. But immediately she was angry with herself for having told such a stupid lie, and she was about to correct herself. Emil, however, broke in quickly: "Perhaps you will have a little time to spare for me, too? I hope so, at least." "Oh, yes!" "So, then, we can arrange something now if you like"--he glanced at the clock--"Ah!" "Must you go?" she asked. "Yes, by twelve o'clock I ought really to...." She was seized with an intense uneasiness at the prospect of having to be alone again so soon, and she said: