o initiate me into her secrets. Besides, I don't know from whom
she inherited it, but she is--well, she is a very sly little person
and this slyness in her is the more dangerous because she is so very
lovable."

"So you do admit that--lovable. And good, too?"

"Good, too. That is, full of goodness of heart. I am not quite certain
about anything further. I believe she has an inclination to let
matters take their course and to console herself with the hope that
God will not call her to a very strict account."

"Do you think so?"

"Yes, I do. Furthermore I think she has improved in many ways. Her
character is what it is, but the conditions since she moved to Berlin
are much more favorable and they are becoming more and more devoted to
each other. She told me something to that effect and, what is more
convincing to me, I found it confirmed by what I saw with my own
eyes."

"Well, what did she say?"

"She said: 'Mama, things are going better now. Innstetten was always
an excellent husband, and there are not many like him, but I couldn't
approach him easily, there was something distant about him. He was
reserved even in his affectionate moments, in fact, more reserved then
than ever. There have been times when I feared him.'"

"I know, I know."

"What do you mean, Briest? That I have feared you, or that you have
feared me? I consider the one as ridiculous as the other."

"You were going to tell me about Effi."

"Well, then, she confessed to me that this feeling of strangeness had
left her and that had made her very happy. Kessin had not been the
right place for her, the haunted house and the people there, some too
pious, others too dull; but since she had moved to Berlin she felt
entirely in her place. He was the best man in the world, somewhat too
old for her and too good for her, but she was now 'over the mountain.'
She used this expression, which, I admit, astonished me."

"How so? It is not quite up to par, I mean the expression. But--"

"There is something behind it, and she wanted to give me an inkling."

"Do you think so?"

"Yes, Briest. You always seem to think she could never be anything but
innocent. But you are mistaken. She likes to drift with the waves, and
if the wave is good she is good, too. Fighting and resisting are not
her affair."

Roswitha came in with Annie and interrupted the conversation.

This conversation occurred on the day that Innstetten departed from
Hohen-Cremmen for Berlin,