She had her code and it was rigorous. But Maria had been saying that she noticed, too, how white and thin Tante Ilde looked when she had gone to take Irma the woollen stockings, just as if her life were being pressed out of her, though not a word of complaint, only a smile and just faint and tired, as if she didn't have a place to rest her feet or to lay her head, "and I'll bet she has it hard with Frau Irma," finished Maria shrewdly.
"About like sitting on pins," answered Fanny with conviction, "but Pauli told me Corinne hoped it would do for awhile, on account of the boys, too."
"I could make her comfortable here for once," pursued Maria insinuatingly, "a little table drawn up by the stove and a good oatmeal soup."
Maria, too, had her doubts as to the propriety of the proceeding. She was quite feeling around in the dark where you might run into all sorts of things. In ordinary times there would have been no question of such an arrangement or even during the War, but the Peace had levelled the ranks of the Viennese with the same efficiency as death—what, indeed, was virtue?
"I feel so sorry for the poor, dear old lady," said Maria meditatively, repeating, "I could make her comfortable for once."
"Well, you'll probably have your way, but I'm against it, it just isn't suitable," answered Fanny flatly. Her aunt's life was broken into bits but there was a whiteness about the remaining pieces that they all, according to their natures, felt must not be diminished.
"But, Lord God!" at last cried Maria, whose voice could rise too, "they all take the money!"
"They can't starve, the poor things!" answered Fanny immediately up in arms for the family, her voice rising above Maria's.
Maria familiar with the signs of trouble, lowered her own.
"It's different her coming here," Fanny began after a pause with an unexpected quiver of the lips.