Instinctively he avoided her look, took her hands and kissed them. He felt inwardly harrowed. When he looked up again he saw her eyes resting on him quite maternally, and she spoke to him like a mother. She explained to him that it was _just_ because of the future--and there swept around that word a gentle suggestion of actual hope--that he should not miss an opportunity like that. In two or three weeks he could come back from Detmold to Vienna for a few days, for the people there would certainly appreciate that he must put his affairs over here in order. But above all it was necessary to give them a proof of his seriousness. And if he set any store by her advice there was only one thing to do: take the train that very evening. He need have no anxiety about her. She felt that she was quite out of danger. She felt that quite unmistakably. Of course he would hear from her every day, twice a day if he liked, morning and evening. He did not yield at once, coming back again to the point that the unexpectedness of this separation would occasion a relapse. She answered that she would much prefer a quick separation like this to the prospect of another four weeks spent in anxiety, emotion and the fear of losing him. And the essential point remained that it was not a question of more than half the year, so they had half the year for themselves, and if everything went all right there would not be many periods of separation for the--the future. He now began again: "And what will you do in this half-year, while I'm away? It is really...." She interrupted him. "For the time being it will go on just as it has been going on for years; but I have been thinking this morning about a lot of things." "The school for singing?" "That, too. Although of course that is neither so easy nor so simple. And besides," she added, with her arch expression, "it would be a pity if one had to shut it up again too soon. But we'll talk about all that later on. You go now and telegraph." "Yes, but what!" he exclaimed in such desperation that she could not help laughing. Then she said: "Quite simple, 'Shall have the honour to present myself at your office to-morrow noon. Yours very obediently or faithfully ... or very proudly....'" He looked at her. Then he kissed her hand and said: "You're certainly the cleverer of us two." His tone seemed to hint "the cooler too." But a gentle, tender and somewhat mocking look from her turned away the _innuendo_. "Well, I'll be back again in ten minutes." He left her with a cheerful face, went into the next room and shut the door. Opposite, in that other room, it now occurred to him again forcibly--his dead child lay in its coffin.... For the necessary steps, to use Doctor Stauber's expression of yesterday, were bound to have been already taken. He felt a paroxysm of grievous yearning. Frau Golowski came out of the hall. She came up to him and spoke with admiration of Anna's resignation and calmness.