“You have to remain cool, nothing else,” growled Christopher, “one must not lose one’s nerve. Anyhow, that has nothing to do with it. What is your opinion about selling building sites?”
Thomas shrugged his shoulders.
“I have no opinion. I am unacquainted with the circumstances.” He was aware that his obstinate reticence was nothing but the expression of his disappointed hopes. Yet he could not alter it.
Christopher was delighted that everything went so smoothly. As a matter of fact he had already sold some of the sites. Now that the deed was done, he was given the required consent. He breathed more freely. He would sell the old timber yard too. Otto Füger was a clever go-between.
Anne took up her work again. Thomas’s aloof indifference revolted her. She had lost her confidence in Christopher. She suspected Otto Füger, but she did not understand business. She had never been taught anything but to sing, to embroider, to play the piano and to dance.
She decided that when her little girl was born, she would make her learn everything that her mother did not know. And while still young, she should be taught that people can never be entirely happy. She would tell it to her simply, so that she could understand and not be obliged later on to hug to herself something that nobody wants and that is always unconsciously trampled on by those to whom it is vainly proffered.
But the little girl, for whom Anne was waiting in the old house, never came. In spring the second boy was born and he was christened Ladislaus Thomas John Christopher in the old church, now rebuilt, at Leopold’s town.
After that Anne was ill for a long time. The cold gleam, which had formerly made her glance so hard, disappeared from her eye. The lines of her fine eyebrows softened down. Her boyish bony little hands became softer, more womanly.
Then she was about again, but the shadow of her sufferings remained on her face.
Thomas was courteous and attentive. He brought her books. For hours he read to her aloud, without stopping, as if driven; he seemed to fear Anne’s gaze which his eye had to face when he put the book down. What did this gaze want? Did it say anything, or ask, or beg, or command? No, Anne wanted nothing more from him. The time was past when.... He buried his face sadly in his hands.