Conscious that she had the facts on her side Magda did not reply, but her breast heaved.
"In any case," said Emma, rising and throwing her napkin down, "how can you believe so easily what the men say about Käthchen? It is disgusting. Are we all to remain defenceless against their gossip?" In high dudgeon she sat down in a corner and began to read. Magda simply shrugged her shoulders, while Diederich sought anxiously and in vain for a transition which would enable him to ask if Guste Daimchen also …? With such a long engagement? "There are situations," he declared, "where it is no longer just gossip." Then Emma flung away her book.
"Well, what about it? Käthchen does what she thinks fit. We girls have just as much right as you men to live our own lives! You may consider yourselves lucky if you can get us at all afterwards!"
Diederich stood up. "I will not listen to such talk in my house," he said seriously, and he glared at Magda until she stopped laughing.
Frau Hessling brought him his cigar. "I know my little Diedel will never marry any one like that"—she stroked him consolingly. He replied with great emphasis: "Mother, I cannot imagine that a true German man ever did so."
She began to flatter him: "Oh, they are not all idealists, like my dear son. Many think more materially and with the money they take something else into the bargain, which makes people talk." Under his commanding glance she continued to chatter nervously. "For instance, Guste. God knows, he is dead now, and it can't make any difference to him, but at the time there was a great deal of talk." Now all three children looked at her inquiringly. "Yes, indeed," she said soberly, "that affair of Frau Daimchen and Herr Buck; Guste was born too soon."
After this statement Frau Hessling had to take refuge behind the screen in front of the stove, for the three of them
