“Ah, that’s how it looks to you,” Will answered, with a sigh; “but Linnet—well, Linnet sees things otherwise. You must remember, Florian, above all things, she’s a Catholic. She doesn’t _love_ that man, but she’s entered with him into the sacrament of marriage. To her, it has all a religious significance. The less she loves Andreas, the more does she feel she must honour and obey him, and be a good true wife to him. If she loved him, she might perhaps sometimes rebel a little; because she doesn’t love him, she has become a mere slave to do his bidding.” “I suppose that’s it,” Florian answered, swinging his stick in his hand, and stepping along gingerly. “_Drôle de croyance_, isn’t it? Still, I call it disgraceful. An exquisite creature like that—a divinely-inspired singer, a supply-moulded form of Hellenic sculpture, whom the Gods above have given us as a precious gift for the common delight and the common enjoyment—to be thwarted and pulled up short at every twist and turn—and by whom, I’d like to know? Why, by a Tyrolese innkeeper—a mere village host—who arrogates to himself the right of monopolising what Heaven meant for us all—_Ach!_ I call it detestable, just simply detestable. He hardly allows her enough to eat and drink. She might just as well be a _sennerin_ on her hillside again, for any pleasure or delight she gets out of her success, tied and hampered as she is with this creature Hausberger.” “That’s quite true,” Will replied. “She was happier in the Zillerthal. She has money, and fine dresses, and jewellery, and applause; but, for any good they can do her, she might as well be without them. Hausberger treats her as a mere machine for making money for him. He’s careful to see the machine works thoroughly well, and doesn’t get out of order—absurdly careful, in fact, for he’s by nature over-cautious; but as for allowing her to enjoy anything of what she earns herself, in any reasonable way—why, it never even occurs to him.” “Do you think he’s unkind to her?” Florian asked, somewhat carelessly. “I mean, do you think he ill-treats her—keeps her short, and so forth?” “He doesn’t actively ill-treat her, I’m sure,” Will answered with confidence; “he has far too great a sense of the value of her health to do anything to injure it. And I don’t suppose he even keeps her actually short; she’s always beautifully dressed, of course—that’s part of the advertisement; and he takes her about as much as he can, without risk to her voice, and lavishes a certain sort of wooden care upon her. But I don’t think he ever regards her as a human being at all; he regards her as a delicate musical instrument in which he has invested money, and out of which, during a given number of years, he has to recoup himself and make his fortune. As to sympathy between them, why, naturally, that’s quite out of the question; he’s a harsh, stern man who hardly knows how to be kind, I should say, to anyone.”