He was done suddenly and forever with the pluckable maids, perpetually ripe fruit, all seasons being theirs, that abound in Vienna; inaccessible too, to the sentiments that he had periodically experienced for one or another woman who had crossed his susceptible and magnetic orbit, whom he had possessed or not possessed, as the case might have been. It was different from everything else under the sun and was growing, growing. It was hope and image in his brain, greed and hurry in his body. He was mad for Corinne, Corinne earning unnaturally yet competently her daily bread in a bank when she should have been holding court under some oak at the change of the midsummer moon. Corinne placing endless, neat zeroes across broad, white pages when she should have been plucking simples or brewing potions. That elfin brood that crowded her pale heart overpowered his being, held it captive. One would have said he needed something brighter, hotter.... Yet, Corinne ... out of the whole world.... But that none of them knew as yet save Tante Ilde in her shy, sure way. Anna, who never got things straight, had a deep, dull jealousy of Fanny, a sentiment, however, that she had been familiar with since her earliest childhood, and when indirectly she learned that Pauli had seen Fanny, she was miserable for days, after her chill, slow habit, miserable unto death almost. She suspected Fanny of having made that arrangement about Tante Ilde; Fanny, though one never saw her, was always everywhere it seemed to Anna. Two dull fires had burned in Anna's eyes, two sombre red spots had darkened her cheeks, excitement never lighted up her face, when she learned not only that her aunt Ilde was to come and regularly, every Tuesday, but that Pauli himself would cast his bright shadow over his own dark threshold on that day. She and Hermine began straightway to plan as attractive a menu as lack of talent and materials permitted.... When Corinne had asked Pauli if Anna couldn't take Tante Ilde once a week for her midday meal, he had responded warmly, not simply to give Corinne pleasure, but because he was made that way. "But of course! The poor, dear Tanterl, I'll tell Anna to get the best she can, you know she's not very clever at it, and I'll try to be there myself." Pauli was doubtless various kinds of a sinner, but his humanity was always to be counted on. It wasn't because Corinne was looking obliquely at him, with the look that stirred him hotly, madly....