Frau Permaneder’s anxiety made her heart beat loudly. The question, the great question, could now not be put off any longer. It must come up, and he must answer; but was her brother now in a mood to be governed by gentleness and filial piety? Alas, she feared not. “And--Tom--,” she began, looking down into her lap, and then up, as she made a timid effort to read his thoughts. “The furniture--you have taken everything into consideration of course--the things that belong to us, I mean to Erica and me and the little one, they remain here with us? In short, the house--what about it?” she finished, and furtively wrung her hands. The Senator did not answer at once. He went on for a while twisting his moustaches and drearily meditating. Then he drew a deep breath and sat up. “The house?” he said. “Of course it belongs to all of us, to you and me, and Christian--and, queerly enough, to Pastor Tiburtius too. I can’t decide anything about it by myself. I have to get your consent. But obviously the thing to do is to sell as soon as possible,” he concluded, shrugging his shoulders. Yet something crossed his face, after all, as though he were startled by his own words. Frau Permaneder’s head sank deep on her breast; her hands stopped pressing themselves together; she relaxed all over. “Our consent,” she repeated after a pause, sadly, and rather bitterly as well. “Dear me, Tom, you know you will do whatever you think best--the rest of us are not likely to withhold our consent for long. But if we might put in a word--to beg you,” she, went on, almost dully, but her lip was trembling too--“the house--Mother’s house--the family home, in which we have all been so happy! We must sell it--?” The Senator shrugged his shoulders again. “Child, you will believe me when I tell you that I feel everything you can say, as much as you do yourself. But those are only our feelings; they aren’t actual objections. What has to be done, remains the problem. Here we have this great piece of property--what shall we do with it? For years back, ever since Father’s death, the whole back part has been going to pieces. A family of cats is living rent-free in the billiard-room, and you can’t walk there for fear of going through the floor. Of course, if I did not have my house in Fishers’ Lane-- But I have, and what should I do with it? Do you think I might sell that instead? Tell me yourself, to whom? I should lose half the money I put into it. We have property enough, Tony; we have far too much, in fact. The granary buildings, and two great houses. The invested capital is out of all proportion to the value of the property. No, no, we must sell.” But Frau Permaneder was not listening. She was sitting bent over on the sofa, withdrawn into herself with her own thoughts.