Yes, that will be much better. But do you keep your mother’s letters—you haven’t so many mementos of her.

[He hands Asta the portfolio. She takes it, and lays it on the chair under her outdoor things. Rita comes into the room again.

Rita.

Ugh! I feel as if that horrible old woman had brought a sort of graveyard smell with her.

Allmers.

Yes, she was rather horrible.

Rita.

I felt almost sick while she was in the room.

Allmers.

However, I can very well understand the sort of spellbound fascination that she talked about. The loneliness of the mountain-peaks and of the great waste places has something of the same magic about it.