"She really is the most charming of all," such was the end of his reflections, "if only she weren't so damnably sensible." Silently she took her seat opposite him, folded her white hands in her lap, and looked into his eyes with such significant archness that he began to feel embarrassed. Had she any suspicion of his infidelities? Surely not. No jealous woman can look about her so calmly and serenely. "What have you been doing all this time?" he asked. "I? Good heavens! Look about you and you'll see." She pointed to a heap of books which lay scattered over the window seat and sewing table. There were Moltke's letters and the memoirs of von Schoen, and Max Mueller's Aryan studies. Nor was the inevitable Schopenhauer lacking. "What are you after with all that learning?" he asked. "Ah, dear friend, what is one to do? One can't always be going about in strange houses. Do you expect me to stand at the window and watch the clouds float over the old city-wall?" He had the uncomfortable impression that she was quoting something again. "My mood," she went on, "is in what Goethe calls the minor of the soul. It is the yearning that reaches out afar and yet restrains itself harmoniously within itself. Isn't that beautifully put?" "It may be, but it's too high for me!" In laughing self-protection, he stretched out his arms toward her. "Don't make fun of me," she said, slightly shamed, and arose. "And what is the object of your yearning?" he asked in order to leave the realm of Goethe as swiftly as possible. "Not you, you horrible person," she answered and, for a moment, touched his hair with her lips. "I know that, dearest," he said, "it's a long time since you've sent me two notes a day." "And since you came to see me twice daily," she returned and gazed at the floor with a sad irony. "We have both changed greatly, Alice." "We have indeed, Richard." A silence ensued. His eyes wandered to the opposite wall.... His own picture, framed in silvery maple-wood, hung there.... Behind the frame appeared a bunch of blossoms, long faded and shrivelled to a brownish, indistinguishable heap. These two alone knew the significance of the flowers.... "Were you at least happy in those days, Alice?" "You know I am always happy, Richard." "Oh yes, yes; I know your philosophy. But I meant happy with me, through me?" She stroked her delicate nose thoughtfully. The mocking expression about the corners of her mouth became accentuated. "I hardly think so, Richard," she said after an interval. "I was too much afraid of you ... I seemed so stupid in comparison to you and I feared that you would despise me." "That fear, at least, you have overcome very thoroughly?" he asked.