o the fact that she does not yet fully
know what she has in him. Or is it simply that she does not love him
very much? That would be bad. For with all his virtues he is not the
man to win her love with an easy grace."

Mrs. von Briest kept silent and counted the stitches of her fancy
work. Finally she said: "What you just said, Briest, is the most
sensible thing I have heard from you for the last three days,
including your speech at dinner. I, too, have had my misgivings. But I
believe we have reason to feel satisfied."

"Has she poured out her heart to you?"

"I should hardly call it that. True, she cannot help talking, but she
is not disposed to tell everything she has in her heart, and she
settles a good many things for herself. She is at once communicative
and reticent, almost secretive; in general, a very peculiar mixture."

"I am entirely of your opinion. But how do you know about this if she
didn't tell you?"

"I only said she did not pour out her heart to me. Such a general
confession, such a complete unburdening of the soul, it is not in her
to make. It all came out of her by sudden jerks, so to speak, and then
it was all over. But just because it came from her soul so
unintentionally and accidentally, as it were, it seemed to me for that
very reason so significant."

"When was this, pray, and what was the occasion?"

"Unless I am mistaken, it was just three weeks ago, and we were
sitting in the garden, busied with all sorts of things belonging to
her trousseau, when Wilke brought a letter from Innstetten. She put it
in her pocket and a quarter of an hour later had wholly forgotten
about it, till I reminded her that she had a letter. Then she read it,
but the expression of her face hardly changed. I confess to you that
an anxious feeling came over me, so intense that I felt a strong
desire to have all the light on the matter that it is possible to have
under the circumstances."

"Very true, very true."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, I mean only--But that is wholly immaterial. Go on with your
story; I am all ears."

"So I asked her straight out how matters stood, and as I wished to
avoid anything bordering on solemnity, in view of her peculiar
character, and sought to take the whole matter as lightly as possible,
almost as a joke, in fact, I threw out the question, whether she would
perhaps prefer to marry Cousin von Briest, who had showered his
attentions upon her in Berlin."

"And?"

"