"No," he answered quietly. "And for that very reason, it seems to me folly to hastily throw away the something we possess here." "Hastily? How long is one to wait? When would you permit a person, who did not find this something worth the trouble it costs, to take refuge in nothing?" "When he quite despairs of being anything in the world, of making himself useful or giving pleasure to himself or anybody else." "Well then--in that case, you might without hesitation sign my passport for departure. For that _I_ am an utterly useless creature, and at the utmost can only afford Jean Jacques a little pleasure when I give him five groschen to feast at a cake shop--" The tears that she had vainly endeavored to repress, burst forth, yet she did not turn away from him, but stood at the little table before the sofa, resting both slender hands on its polished surface as if to support herself, while large drops fell from her black lashes. Edwin watched her with the deepest sympathy. He was obliged to use the greatest self control, to refrain from standing up and clasping her in his arms, to console her as one would a child. "If you did not endure my presence simply for the sake of my wisdom," he said as calmly as possible, "I would give you the most absurd proofs, that your existence was a necessity of life to some one besides Friend Jean, a blessing, a source of joy, though to be sure not wholly unclouded. But aside from all nonsense: you must not go on so, Toinette. You're quite right: one who lives so during the day, at last passes out of the day into the night that has no morning. I see that I've come just at the right time. Courage, child, courage! Permit me to tell you that you don't yet understand the life you wish to cast away. No indeed," he continued, as she gazed at him through her tears with a look of surprise, which seemed to say: 'yet I've experienced enough'--"you know only want and affluence; but there are a thousand steps between, on which a sensible person can sit down very comfortably and accommodate himself to the world. To be sure, he must possess one thing to make life endurable anywhere." "You mean a contented heart?" "Heaven forbid, my dear friend! It should be a very much spoiled, exacting heart; do you suppose, for instance, mine would take a predilection so easily? But it will not matter if the heart is needy and rich at the same time--that wonderfully contradictory condition called love, when we know not which is most blessed, to give or to receive, where we are never satisfied with giving and receiving, and in this absurdly delightful and nonsensically clever occupation, have no time to consider the rest of earthly things, plush furniture or wooden chairs, because the whole question of wealth or poverty has been transferred to another province." He relapsed into silence, and eagerly watched the effect of his words. Her tears had ceased to flow, and she was gazing absently and dreamily into vacancy.