"Thank God, yes," replied her friend, in a tone of solemn seriousness which Hertha couldn't understand, because she had always thought happiness was a laughing matter, and only unhappiness a subject that required to be treated seriously. Her eyes began to wander round the room again, for she was keenly anxious to discover all the curiosities it contained. Suddenly she gave a start, for there in a corner she alighted on a row of high button-boots, of dimensions so enormous that no woman's feet could have filled them. "How do they come there?" she asked timidly. "They are Hans's Wellingtons," replied Meta, in a matter-of-course tone, which crushed her afresh. It seemed to her as if the Wellingtons grew visibly to a still more gigantic size, and formed an insurmountable barrier between her and her friend. She began at the same time to resent the reserve with which Meta continued to behave towards her.... The days when they had sat in corners together and giggled and tittered while they crunched peppermint bull's-eyes out of a bag that lay across their laps, and now and then flipped each other behind the ear, seemed gone for ever. "She, too, is going to prove faithless," thought Hertha, and her heart flamed up within her, as it always did at anything which recalled the fleeting vision of treacherous Käthi Greiffenstein. But that had nothing to do with her mission. Most undoubtedly any one who was on such familiar and intimate terms with a man's Wellingtons, must be able to enlighten her with regard to the mystery she was so eager to have explained. But she didn't dare yet throw out any hints of her thirst for knowledge. They talked of one thing and another, Meta maintaining her gentle smile and reticent manner. After about half an hour, she rose and explained with a sigh that she must go and inquire how mamma was--if her visitor would excuse her. And Hertha was left alone. How could she make use of the time? For she had settled in her mind that she would make use of it, only she was undecided between duties of mothers and the powder-puff. At last, after a short but sharp struggle, the powder-puff gained the day. Her eyes guiltily fixed on the door, she snatched the little implement, and with a trembling, hasty movement, dabbed it over her forehead and cheeks. Then she ventured to take a nervous glance at herself in the mirror, and what she saw frightened her.... It was the face of a corpse! Now she knew how she would look when she lay in her coffin with a wreath of myrtle on her hair and with roses in her marble hands--so pale, so beautiful! She let her head fall as far back as possible on her neck, and dropped her lids so low that only a misty slit between her lashes was left for her to see through. Both her neck and the back of her head began to ache, but she did not stir.