so, Roswitha? I don't."

"Oh, oh, I am not so easily fooled, and I think your Ladyship knows
very well, too, how matters really stand and what the men like best."

"Oh, don't speak of that, Roswitha."

The conversation ended here and was never afterward resumed. But even
though Effi avoided speaking to Roswitha about Annie, down deep in her
heart she was unable to get over that meeting and suffered from the
thought of having fled from her own child. It troubled her till she
was ashamed, and her desire to meet Annie grew till it became
pathological. It was not possible to write to Innstetten and ask his
permission. She was fully conscious of her guilt, indeed she nurtured
the sense of it with almost zealous care; but, on the other hand, at
the same time that she was conscious of guilt, she was also filled
with a certain spirit of rebellion against Innstetten. She said to
herself, he was right, again and again, and yet in the end he was
wrong. All had happened so long before, a new life had begun--he might
have let it die; instead poor Crampas died.

No, it would not do to write to Innstetten; but she wanted to see
Annie and speak to her and press her to her heart, and after she had
thought it over for days she was firmly convinced as to the best way
to go about it.

The very next morning she carefully put on a decent black dress and
set out for Unter den Linden to call on the minister's wife. She sent
in her card with nothing on it but "Effi von Innstetten, _nee_ von
Briest." Everything else was left off, even "Baroness." When the man
servant returned and said, "Her Excellency begs you to enter," Effi
followed him into an anteroom, where she sat down and, in spite of her
excitement, looked at the pictures on the walls. First of all there
was Guido Reni's _Aurora_, while opposite it hung English etchings of
pictures by Benjamin West, made by the well known aquatint process.
One of the pictures was King Lear in the storm on the heath.

Effi had hardly finished looking at the pictures when the door of the
adjoining room opened and a tall slender woman of unmistakably
prepossessing appearance stepped toward the one who had come to
request a favor of her and held out her hand. "My dear most gracious
Lady," she said, "what a pleasure it is for me to see you again." As
she said this she walked toward the sofa and sat down, drawing Effi to
a seat beside her.

Effi was touched by the goodness of heart revealed in every wo