Doctor Stauber was walking by his side, his lids half closed and his cigar in his mouth, and while George told him about his efforts and his prospects with self-important emphasis he thought he felt that Doctor Stauber simply regarded everything he said as nothing more than an attempted justification of his putting off his marriage with Anna. A slight irritation against her arose within him; she seemed to be standing behind them and perhaps was enjoying quietly that he was, as it were, being cross-examined by Doctor Stauber. He deliberately assumed a lighter and lighter tone, as though his own personal plans for the future had nothing at all to do with Anna, and finished up by saying merrily: "Why, who knows where I shall be this time next year? I may finish up in America." "You might do worse," replied Doctor Stauber quietly. "I have a cousin who is a violinist in Boston, a man named Schwarz, who earns there at least six times as much as he gets here at the opera." George did not like being compared with violinists of the name of Schwarz and asserted with an emphasis which he himself thought rather exaggerated that it was not at all a question of money-making, at any rate at the beginning. Suddenly, he did not know where the thought came from, the idea ran through his mind: "Supposing Anna dies.... Supposing the child were her death...." He felt deeply shocked, as though he had committed a crime by the very thought, and he saw in his imagination Anna lying there with the shroud drawn over her chin and he saw the candlelight and daylight streaming over her wax-pale face. He turned round almost anxiously, as though to assure himself that she was there and alive. The features of her face were blurred in the darkness and this frightened him. He remained standing with the doctor till Anna arrived with Heinrich. He was happy to have her so near him. "You must be quite tired now, dear," he said to her in his tenderest tone. "I've certainly honestly performed my day's work," she replied. "Besides," and she pointed to the verandah, where the lamp with the green paper shade was standing on the laid table, "supper will soon be ready. It would be so nice, Doctor, if you could stay; won't you?" "I'm afraid it's impossible, my dear child. I ought to have been back in town ages ago. Remember me kindly to Frau Golowski. See you again soon. Good-bye, Herr Bermann. Come," he added, "is one going to get another chance soon of seeing or reading one of your fine pieces of work?" Heinrich shrugged his shoulders, vouchsafed a social smile and was silent. Why, he thought, are even the best-bred men usually tactless when they meet people like myself? Do I ask him about his affairs?