“Every man annoys his wife, and enthusiasm for art is not the worst thing by a good deal.”

“No, certainly not.  At all events we will not quarrel about that; it is a wide field.  Then, too, people are so different.  Now you, you know, would have been the right person for that.  Generally speaking, you would have been better suited to Innstetten than Effi.  What a pity!  But it is too late now.”

“Extremely gallant remark, except for the fact that it is not apropos.  However, in any case, what has been has been.  Now he is my son-in-law, and it can accomplish nothing to be referring back all the while to the affairs of youth.”

“I wished merely to rouse you to an animated humor.”

“Very kind of you, but it was not necessary.  I am in an animated humor.”

“Likewise a good one?”

“I might almost say so.  But you must not spoil it.—­Well, what else is troubling you?  I see there is something on your mind.”

“Were you pleased with Effi?  Were you satisfied with the whole affair?  She was so peculiar, half naive, and then again very self-conscious and by no means as demure as she ought to be toward such a husband.  That surely must be due solely to 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.”