"I heard that you had returned already. Well, how did you get on?" said
Frau Rupius, extending her hand in a friendly way.
"Very well—very well indeed, but—"
"Why, you are gazing at me as though you were quite frightened! No, Frau Bertha, I am coming back again—no later than to-morrow. The long journey that I had in view came to nothing, so I have had to—settle on something else."
"Something else?"
"Why, of course, staying at home. I shall be back again to-morrow. Well, how did you get on?"
"I told you just now—very well."
"Yes, of course, you did tell me before. But I see you are going to post that letter, are you not?"
And then for the first time Bertha noticed that she was still holding the letter to Emil in her hand. She gazed at it with such enraptured eyes that Frau Rupius smiled.
"Perhaps you would like me to take it with me? It is to go to Vienna,
I presume?"
"Yes," answered Bertha, and then she added resolutely, as though she was glad to be able to say it out at last: "to him."