Frau von Treumann appeared suddenly, coming softly across the grass, so that there was no time to run away. "Anna," she called out reproachfully, seeing Anna make a movement as though she wanted to run, which was exactly what she did want to do, "Anna, have I the plague?" "I hope not," said Anna. "You treat me as if I had it." Anna said nothing. "Why does she stay here? How can she stay here, after what has happened?" she had wondered often. Perhaps she had come now to announce her departure. She prepared herself therefore to listen with a willing ear. She was sitting in the shade of a copper beech facing the oily sea and the coast of Rügen quivering opposite in the heat-haze. She was not doing anything; she never did seem to do anything, as these ladies of the busy fingers often noticed. "Blue and white," said Anna, looking up at the gulls and the sky to give Frau von Treumann time, "the Pomeranian colours. I see now where they come from." But Frau von Treumann had not come out to talk about the Pomeranian colours. "My Karlchen has been ill," she said, her eyes on Anna's face. Anna watched the gulls overhead in the deep blue. "So has Else," she remarked. "Dear me," thought Frau von Treumann, "what rancour." She laid her hand on Anna's knee, and it was taken no notice of. "You cannot forgive him?" she said gently. "You cannot pardon a momentary indiscretion?" "I have nothing to forgive," said Anna, watching the gulls; one dropped down suddenly, and rose again with a fish in its beak, the sun for an instant catching the silver of the scales. "It is no affair of mine. It is for Else to forgive him." Frau von Treumann began to weep; this way of looking at it was so hopelessly unreasonable. She pulled out her handkerchief. "What a heap she must use," thought Anna; never had she met people who cried so much and so easily as the Chosen; she was quite used now to red eyes; one or other of her sisters had them almost daily, for the farther their old bodily discomforts and real anxieties lay behind them the more tender and easily lacerated did their feelings become. "He could not bear to see you being imposed upon," said Frau von Treumann. "As soon as he knew about this terrible sister he felt he must hasten down to save you. 'Mother,' he said to me when first he suspected it, 'if it is true, she must not be contaminated.'" "Who mustn't?" "Oh, Anna, you know he thinks only of you!" "Well, you see," said Anna, "I don't mind being contaminated." "Oh, dear child, a young pretty girl ought to mind very much." "Well, I don't. But what about yourself? Are you not afraid of--of contamination?" She was frightened by her own daring when she had said it, and would not have looked at Frau von Treumann for worlds. "No, dear child," replied that lady in tones of tearful sweetness, "I am too old to suffer in any way from associating with queer people."