"Get along...." "I tell you, with Therese. They've been travelling for eight days. What have you got to say to that? They have been in Venice and Milan. Had you any idea of it?" "No." "Really not?" "Really not. You know of course that Therese only once wrote me a line, and you read her letter with your well-known interest." "You're not astonished enough." "Good gracious, I always knew that she had good taste." "So has Demeter," exclaimed George with conviction. "Elective affinities," remarked Anna, elevating her eyebrows, and went on crocheting. "And so this is the mother of my child," said George, with a merry shake of his head. She looked at him with a smile. "When is she coming to see me, then?" "In the afternoon about six, I think. And ... and Stanzides is coming too ... a bit later. They are going to dine with us. You don't mind?" "Mind? I'm very glad," replied Anna simply. George was agreeably surprised. If Anna in her present condition had met Stanzides in Vienna!... he thought. How being away from one's usual environment frees and purifies! "What news did they tell you?" asked Anna. "We stood chatting together at the post-office for scarcely three minutes. He sends his regards to you, by the way." Anna made no answer and it seemed to George as though her thoughts were travelling again on extremely conventional lines. "Have you been up long?" he asked quickly. "Yes, I have been sitting here on the balcony for quite a long time. I even went to sleep a bit, the air is so enervating to-day somehow. And I dreamed, too." "What did you dream about?" "Of the child," she said. "Again?" She nodded. "Just the same as the other day. I was sitting here on the balcony in my dream, and had it in my arms at the breast...." "But what was it, a boy or a girl?" "I don't know. Just a child. So tiny and so sweet. And the joy was so.... No I won't give it up," she said softly with closed eyes. He stood leaning on the railing and felt the light noon wind stroke his hair. "If you don't want to give it out to nurse," he said, "well you mustn't." And the thought ran through his mind, "Wouldn't it be the most convenient thing to marry her?..." But something or other kept him back from saying so. They were both silent. He had laid the letters in front of him on the table. He now took them up and opened one. "Let's see, first, what your mother writes?" he said. Frau Rosner's letter contained the news that all was well at home, that they would all be very glad to see Anna again, and that Josef had got a post on the staff of the _Volksbote_ with a salary of fifty gulden a month. Further, an inquiry had come from Frau Bittner as to when Anna was coming back from Dresden, and if it was really certain that she would be back again next autumn, because otherwise they would of course have to look about for a new teacher.... Anna stood motionless and expressed no opinion. Then George read out Heinrich's letter. It ran as follows: