The Consul twisted and turned, and found a compromise. “My dear child, you can understand how painful it would be for me to have to tell you all the hardships and suffering that would come about through the misfortune of your husband, the breaking-up of the business and of your household. I desire to spare you these first unpleasantnesses by taking you and little Erica home with me. You would be glad of that, I think?” Tony was silent a moment, drying her tears. She carefully breathed on her handkerchief and pressed it against her eyes to heal their inflammation. Then she asked in a firm tone, without lifting her voice: “Papa, is Grünlich to blame? Is it his folly and lack of uprightness that has brought him to this?” “Very probably,” said the Consul. “That is--no, I don’t know, my child. The explanation with him and the banker has not taken place yet.” She seemed not to be listening. She sat crouched on her three silk cushions, her elbow on her knee, her chin in her hand, and with her head bowed looked dreamily into the room. “Ah, Papa,” she said softly, almost without moving her lips, “wouldn’t it have been better--?” The Consul could not see her face--but it had the expression it often wore those summer evenings at Travemünde, as she leaned at the window of her little room. One arm rested on her Father’s knee, the hand hanging down limply. This very hand was expressive of a sad and tender abandonment, a sweet, pensive longing, travelling back into the past. “Better?” asked Consul Buddenbrook. “If what, my child?” He was thoroughly prepared for the confession that it would have been better had this marriage not taken place; but Tony only answered with a sigh: “Oh, nothing.” She seemed rapt by her thoughts, which had borne her so far away that she had almost forgotten the “bankrupt.” The Consul felt himself obliged to utter what he would rather only have confirmed. “I think I guess your thoughts, Tony,” he said, “and I don’t on my side hesitate to confess that in this hour I regret the step that seemed to me four years ago so wise and advisable. I believe, before God, I am not responsible. I think I did my duty in trying to give you an existence suitable to your station. Heaven has willed otherwise. You will not believe that your Father played lightly and unreflectingly with your happiness in those days! Grünlich came to us with the best recommendations, a minister’s son, a Christian and a cosmopolitan man. Later I made business inquiries, and it all sounded as favourable as possible. I examined the connections. All that is still very dark; and the explanation is yet to come. But you don’t blame me--?” “No, Papa--how can you say such a thing? Come, don’t take it to heart, poor Papa! You look pale. Shall I give you a little cordial?” She put her arm around his neck and kissed his cheek.