He talked to her about Christian Wahnschaffe and one evening he brought him to her. In Christian’s face there was something radiant. Adda Castillo had drenched it with her passion. Eva felt about him the breath of another woman and her face showed a mocking curiosity. For several seconds the young man and the dancer faced each other like two statues on their pedestals. Crammon wondered whether Christian would ever thank him for this service. He gave his arm to Susan, and the two walked to and fro in the picture gallery. “I hope your blond German friend is a prince,” said Susan with her air of worry. “He’s a prince travelling incognito in this vale of tears,” Crammon answered. “You’ve made some stunning changes here,” he added, gazing about him. “I’m satisfied with you both. You are wise and know the ways of the world.” Susan stopped and told him of what weighed upon her mind. Ivan Michailovitch Becker came from time to time, and he and Eva would talk together for many hours. Always after that Eva would pass a sleepless night and answer no questions and have a fevered gleaming in her eyes. And how was one to forbid the marvellous child her indulgence in this mood? Yet it might hold a danger for her. No stray pessimist with awkward hands should be permitted to drag down as with weights the delicate vibrations of her soul. “What do you advise us to do?” she asked. Crammon rubbed his smooth chin. “I must think it over,” he said, “I must think it over.” He sat down in a corner and rested his head on his hands and pondered. Eva chatted with Christian. Sometimes she laughed at his remarks, sometimes they seemed strange and astonishing to her. Yet even where she thought her own judgment the better, she was willing to hear and learn. She regarded his figure with pleasure and asked him to get her, from a table in the room, an onyx box filled with semi-precious stones. She wanted to see how he would walk and move, how he would stretch out his arm and hand after the box and give it to her. She poured the stones into her lap and played with them. She let them glide through her fingers, and said to Christian with a smile that he should have become a dancer. He answered naïvely that he was not fond of dancing in general, but that he would think it charming to dance with her. His speech amused her, but she promised to dance with him. The stones glittered in her hands; a quiver of her mouth betrayed vexation and pride but also compassion.