"Oh not at all," said George politely. "You buried your father, that's no trifle." George looked straight in front of him. But Frau Wyner went on speaking quite unperturbed. "And your father wasn't old, was he? And such a handsome man.... Is it true that he was a chemist?" "No," answered George calmly. "He was President of the Botanical Society." Heinrich with one arm on the shut piano-top was speaking to Else. "So you've been in Germany?" she asked. "Yes," replied Heinrich. "I've been back a fairly long time, four or five weeks." "And when are you going back again?" "I don't know, perhaps never." "Come, you don't believe that yourself--what are you working at?" she added quickly. "All kinds of things," he answered. "I'm going through a rather restless time. I sketch out a lot but I finish nothing. I'm very rarely keen on completing things, obviously I lose all my interest in things too quickly." "And people too," added Else. "Possibly. Only unhappily one's emotions remain attached to people after one's reason has long ago decided to have nothing more to do with them. A poet--if you will allow me to use the expression--must go away from every one who no longer presents any riddle to him ... particularly from any one whom he loves." "They say," suggested Else, "that it is just those whom we know least that we love." "That's what Nürnberger makes out, but it's not quite right. If it were really so, my dear Else, then life would probably be much more beautiful than it is. No, we know those whom we love much better than we do other people--but we know them with a feeling of shame, bitterness and with the fear that others may know them as well as we do. Love means this--being afraid that the faults which we have discovered in the person we love may be revealed to others. Love means this--being able to look into the future and curse this very gift.... Love means this--knowing some one so that it smashes one." Else leant on the piano in her childish lady-like way and listened to him curiously. How much she liked him in moments like this! She would have liked to have stroked his hair again consolingly, as she had done before on the lake when he had been torn by his love for that other woman, but when he suddenly retired into his shell, coldly and drily, and looked as though all his fire had been extinguished she felt that she could never live with him, and she would be bound to run away after a few weeks ... with a Spanish officer or a violin _virtuoso_. "It is a good thing," she said somewhat condescendingly, "that you see something of George Wergenthin. He'll have a sound influence on you. He is quieter than you are. I don't think that he is so gifted as you are, and I am sure that he is not so clever." "What do you know about his gifts?" interrupted Heinrich almost rudely.