Uncle Joachim did not immediately reply. They had come to the open space in the middle of the maze, and he sat down on the seat to recover his breath, and to wipe his forehead; for though the wind was cold the sun was fierce. "_Gott, was man Alles durchmacht auf Reisen!_" he sighed. Then he put his handkerchief back into his pocket, looked up at Anna, who was standing in front of him leaning on her sunshade, and said, "A _Quatschkopf_ is a foolish fellow who marries a woman like that." "Oh, poor Susie!" cried Anna, at once ready to defend her, and full of the kindly feelings absence invariably produced. "Peter did a very sensible thing. But I don't think Susie did, marrying Peter." "He is a _Quatschkopf_," said Uncle Joachim, not to be shaken in his opinions, "and the _geborene_ Dobbs is a vulgar woman who is not rich enough." "Not rich enough? Why, we are all suffocated by her money. We never hear of anything else. It would be dreadful if she had still more." "Not rich enough," persisted Uncle Joachim, pursing up his lips into an expression of great disapproval, and shaking his head. "Such a woman should be a millionnaire. Not of marks, but of pounds sterling. Short of that, a man of birth does not impose her as a mother on his children. Peter has done it. He is a _Quatschkopf_." "It is a great mercy that she isn't a millionnaire," said Anna, appalled by the mere thought. "Things would be just the same, except that there would be all that money more to hear about. I hate the very name of money." "Nonsense. Money is very good." "But not somebody else's." "That is true," said Uncle Joachim approvingly. "One's own is the only money that is truly pleasant." Then he added suddenly, "Tell me, how comes it that you are not married?" Anna frowned. "Now you are growing like Susie," she said. "_Ach_--she asks you that often?" "Yes--no, not quite like that. She says she knows why I am not married." "And what knows she?" "She says that I frighten everybody away," said Anna, digging the point of her sunshade into the ground. Then she looked at Uncle Joachim, and laughed. "What?" he said incredulously. This pretty creature standing before him, so soft and young--for that she was twenty-four was hardly credible--could not by any possibility be anything but lovable. "She says that I am disagreeable to people--that I look cross--that I don't encourage them enough. Now isn't it simply terrible to be expected to encourage any wretched man who has money? I don't want anybody to marry me. I don't want to buy my independence that way. Besides, it isn't really independence." "For a woman it is the one life," said Uncle Joachim with great decision. "Talk not to me of independence. Such words are not for the lips of girls. It is a woman's pride to lean on a good husband. It is her happiness to be shielded and protected by him. Outside the narrow circle of her home, for her happiness is not. The woman who never marries has missed all things."