"The Penheim? Do you mean Princess Ludwig?"
"You never said she was here——"
"I did not know that it would interest you."
"—living on charity—she was always shameless—I was at school with her. Oh, I would not have come for any inducement if I had known she was here! She holds nothing sacred, she will boast of her own degradation, she will write to all her friends that I am here too—I told them I was coming only on a visit to you—they knew I knew your uncle—but the Penheim—the Penheim——" and Frau von Treumann threw herself into a chair and covered her face with her hands to shut out the horrid vision.
The corners of Anna's mouth began to take the upward direction that would end in a smile; and feeling how ill-placed such a contortion would be in the presence of this tumultuous grief, she brought them carefully back to a position of proper solemnity. Besides, why should she smile? The poor lady was clearly desperately unhappy about something, though what it was Anna did not quite know. She had looked forward to this first evening with her new friends as to a thing apart, a thing beyond the ordinary experience of life, profound in its peace, perfect in its harmony, the first taste of rest after war, of port after stormy seas; and here was Frau von Treumann plunged in a very audible grief, and in the next room was the baroness, a disconcerting combination of inquisitiveness and ice, and farther down the passage was Fräulein Kuhräuber—in what state, Anna wondered, would she find Fräulein Kuhräuber? Anyhow she had little reason to smile. But the horror with which Princess Ludwig had been mentioned seemed droll beside her own knowledge of the sterling qualities of that excellent woman. She went over to the chair in which Frau von Treumann lay prostrate, and sat down beside her. She was glad that they had reached the stage of sitting down, for talking is difficult to a person who will not keep still.
"How sorry I am," she said, in her pretty, hesitating German, "that you should have been made unhappy the very first evening. Marie is a little wretch. Don't let her stupidity make you miserable. You shall not see her again, I promise you." And she patted Frau von Treumann's arm. "But about Princess Ludwig, now," she went on cheerfully, "she has been here some weeks and you soon learn to know a person you are with every day, and really I have found her nothing but good and kind."
"Ach, she is shameless—she recoils before no degradation!" burst out Frau von Treumann, suddenly removing her hands from her face. "The trouble she has given her relations! She delights in dragging her name in the dirt. She has tried to get places in the most impossible families, and made no attempt to hide what she was doing. She has broken the old Fürst's heart. And she talks about it all, and has no shame, no decency——"
"But is it not admirable——" began Anna.
"She will gloat over me, and tell everyone that I am here in the same way as she is. If she is not ashamed for herself, do you think she will spare me?"
"But why should you think there is anything to be ashamed of in coming to live with me and be my dear friend?"