"What are you thinking of," he exclaimed, "I like it better daily." She was about to reply but fell silent and looked into space with a smile of wistful irony.
"If I except the Life of Jesus and the Kantian—what do you call the things?"
"Antinomies."
"Aha—anti and nomos—I understand—well, if I except these dusty superfluities, I may say that your furnishings are really faultless. The quotations from Goethe are really more appropriate, although I could do without them."
"I'll have them swept out," she said in playful submission.
"You are a dear girl," he said playfully and passed his hand caressingly over her severely combed hair.
She grasped his arm with both hands and remained motionless for a moment during which her eyes fastened themselves upon his with a strangely rigid gleam.
"What evil have I done?" he asked. "Do you remember our childhood's verse: 'I am small, my heart is pure?' Have mercy on me."
"I was only playing at passion," she said with the old half-wistful, half-mocking smile, "in order that our relations may not lose solid ground utterly."
"What do you mean?" he asked, pretending astonishment. "And do you really think, Richard, that between us, things, being as they are—are right?"