instinctively to frighten her, and he added: “He can work himself up again, of course.”
“Certainly, Papa,” answered she. But it did not prevent her from bursting into tears. She sobbed into her batiste handkerchief, trimmed with lace and with the monogram A. G. She still wept just like a child; quite unaffectedly and without embarrassment. Her upper lip had the most touching expression.
Her father continued to probe her with his eyes. “That is your serious feeling, my child?” he asked. He was as simple as she.
“I must, mustn’t I?” she sobbed. “Don’t I have to—?”
“Certainly not,” he said. But with a guilty feeling he added: “I would not force you to it, my dear Tony. If it should be the case that your feelings did not bind you indissolubly to your husband—”
She looked at him with uncomprehending, tear-streaming eyes. “How, Papa?”
The Consul twisted and turned, and found a compromise. “My dear child, you can understand how painful it would be for me to have to tell you all the hardships and suffering that would come about through the misfortune of your husband, the breaking-up of the business and of your household. I desire to spare you these first unpleasantnesses by taking you and little Erica home with me. You would be glad of that, I think?”
Tony was silent a moment, drying her tears. She carefully breathed on her handkerchief and pressed it against her eyes to heal their inflammation. Then she asked In a firm tone, without lifting her voice: “Papa, is Grünlich to blame? Is it his folly and lack of uprightness that has brought him to this?”
“Very probably,” said the Consul. “That is—no, I don’t know, my child. The explanation with him and the banker has not taken place yet.”
She seemed not to be listening. She sat crouched on her
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