Mr. Hellinger, with his snow-white, carefully trimmed beard, and handsome, rosy, boyish face beaming with good nature and the pleasure of living, was leaning back comfortably in the blue chintz armchair, his Turkish dressing-gown pulled over his knees, and apparently awaiting with calmest resignation whatever fate, in the shape of his wife, might be about to bestow upon him. She (his wife) was just throwing a pinch of soda into the little coffee-pot, whereupon she circumstantially wiped her powdery fingers on her white damask apron, which was edged in Russian fashion with broad red and many coloured stripes. Her white matron's cap, the ribbons of which were tightly knotted together like a chin strap under her fleshy chin, had shifted somewhat towards the left ear, and from out its frilly frame there shone, full of energy and enterprise, her coarse, comfortable, sergeant-like face, whose features were rather puffed out, as is often observable in old women who like to share their husband's glass of brandy. One could see that she was accustomed to rule and to subdue, and even the smile of constant injured feeling that played about her broad mouth went to prove how inconsiderately she was wont to carry through her plans. So that she might not sit unoccupied while waiting for the coffee to draw, she took up her coarse woollen knitting, which, in her capacity of president of the ladies' society and directress of the charity organisation, was never allowed to leave her hands, and the needles ran with remarkable rapidity through her bony, work-used fingers. "Have you heard nothing from Robert, Adalbert?" she asked, with a hard metallic voice, which must have penetrated the house to its last corner. The question appeared to be unpleasant to the old man. He shook his head as if he would shake it off; it disturbed his morning tranquillity. "An affectionate son, one must say," she continued, and the injured smile grew in intensity. "Since a week we have neither heard nor seen anything of him; if he lived in the moon he could not come more rarely." Mr. Hellinger muttered something to himself, and busied himself with his long pipe. "It looks as if something were brewing again in that quarter," she began anew; "he has altogether been so peculiar lately; come slinking round me without a word to say for himself. It seems to me there is some debt hanging over him again that he can't satisfy." "Poor fellow," said the old man, and smacked his lips, perhaps to get rid of the unpleasant idea by this means. "Poor fellow, indeed!" she mocked him; "I suppose you pity him into the bargain; perhaps even you have been helping him on the sly?" He raised up his white, well-kept hands in protest and defence of himself, but he had not the courage to look her in the face.