She sighed and said nothing. Cordt sat down in his chair and time passed. Then he asked:
“Do you hear what I say, Adelheid?”
“I am longing to hear what you will say next.”
“I read something similar to what you have been saying in a book lately,” he said. “I forget what the book was called. I was looking into it ... just where the author railed against marriage, with its security and its habits and all that. I have read exactly the same thing in a hundred books, I think.”
“Yes ... they all sing the same song,” she replied. “It is not particularly entertaining. But it is true enough, I daresay.”
Cordt struck his hands together lightly:
“It is curious how little imagination the poets have nowadays,” he said. “One would think there were only half a dozen women, whom they have all kissed and married and run away from. I wonder that it never occurs to one of them to glorify custom.”
Cordt pulled his chair forward and sat with his head in his hands and looked into the fire:
“If I were a poet, I would sing a song in honour of sacred custom,” he said.
“Would you, Cordt?”