"Good gracious, why romantic? Anna can't keep it with her, and you certainly can't. Where could you put it during the rehearsals? In the prompter's box, I suppose?"
George smiled. "You are very kind, Else."
"I'm not kind at all. I only think why should an innocent little creature pay the penalty or suffer for.... Oh well, I mean it can't help it.... After all ... is it a boy?"
"It was a boy." He paused, then he said gently: "It's dead, you know." And he looked in front of him.
"What! Oh, I see ... you want to protect yourself against my officiousness."
"No, Else, how can you?... No, Else, in matters like that one doesn't lie."
"It's true, then? But how did it...?"
"It was still-born."
She looked at the ground. "No? How awful!" She shook her head. "How awful!... And now she's lost everything quite suddenly."
George gave a slight start and was unable to answer. How every one seemed to take it for granted that the Anna affair was finished. And Else did not pity him at all. She had no idea of how the death of the child had shocked him. How could she have an idea either? What did she know of the hour when the garden had lost its colour for him and the heavens their light, because his own beautiful child lay dead within the house?