"Worry me? Poor things, they won't have any energy of any sort left after all they have gone through. I never read such pitiful letters."
"Well, I don't know," said Axel doubtfully. "Manske says one of them is a Treumann. It is a family distinguished by its size and its disagreeableness."
"Oh, but she only married a Treumann, and isn't one herself."
"But a woman generally adopts the peculiarities of the family she marries into, especially if they are unpleasant."
"But she has been a widow for years. And is so poor. And is so crushed."
"I never yet heard of a permanently crushed Treumann," said Axel, shaking his head.
"You are trying to make me uneasy," said Anna, a slight touch of impatience in her voice. She was singularly sensitive about her chosen ones; sensitive in the way mothers are about a child that is deformed.
"No, no," he said quickly, "I only wish to warn you. You maybe disappointed—it is just possible." He could not bear to think of her as disappointed.
"Pray, do you know anything against the other two?" she asked with some defiance. "One of them is a Baroness Elmreich, and the other is a Fräulein Kuhräuber."
Axel looked amused. "I never heard of Fräulein Kuhräuber," he said. "What does Princess Ludwig say to her coming?"