The next morning she said: "The weather is beautiful and mild and I hope the veranda on the side toward the 'Plantation' is in good order, so that we can move out of doors and take breakfast there. We shall be shut up in our rooms soon enough, at best, for the Kessin winters are really four weeks too long." Innstetten agreed heartily. The veranda Effi spoke of, which might perhaps better be called a tent, had been put up in the summer, three or four weeks before Effi's departure for Hohen-Cremmen. It consisted of a large platform, with the side in front open, an immense awning overhead, while to the right and left there were broad canvas curtains, which could be shoved back and forth by means of rings on an iron rod. It was a charming spot and all summer long was admired by the visitors who passed by on their way to the baths. Effi had leaned back in a rocking chair and said, as she pushed the coffee tray toward her husband: "Geert, you might play the amiable host today. I for my part find this rocker so comfortable that I do not care to get up. So exert yourself and if you are right glad to have me back again I shall easily find some way to get even." As she said this she straightened out the white damask cloth and laid her hand upon it. Innstetten took her hand and kissed it. "Well, how did you get on without me?" "Badly enough, Effi." "You just say so and try to look gloomy, but in reality there is not a word of truth in it." "Why, Effi--" "As I will prove to you, If you had had the least bit of longing for your child--I will not speak of myself, for, after all, what is a woman to such a high lord, who was a bachelor for so many years and was in no hurry--" "Well?" "Yes, Geert, if you had had just the least bit of longing, you would not have left me for six weeks to enjoy widow-like my own sweet society in Hohen-Cremmen, with nobody about but Niemeyer and Jahnke, and now and then our friends in Schwantikow. Nobody at all came from Rathenow, which looked as though they were afraid of me, or I had grown too old." "Ah, Effi, how you do talk! Do you know that you are a little coquette?" "Thank heaven that you say so. You men consider a coquette the best thing a woman can be. And you yourself are not different from the rest, even if you do put on such a solemn and honorable air. I know very well, Geert--To tell the truth, you are--" "Well, what?" "Well, I prefer not to say. But I know you very well. To tell the truth, you are, as my Schwantikow uncle once said, an affectionate man, and were born under the star of love, and Uncle Belling was quite right when he said so. You merely do not like to show it and think it is not proper and spoils one's career. Have I struck it?" Innstetten laughed. "You have struck it a little bit. And let me tell you, Effi, you seem to me entirely changed. Before little Annie came you were a child, but all of a sudden--" "Well?"