She felt that she must smile too, though she began crying again directly.
Konrad's uncle prepared to take his departure, and she clung on tightly to his shoulder. She couldn't bear to let him go. He was the last link with her vanished dream of happiness.
"What message shall I take him?" he asked.
She drew herself erect. Her eyes widened. She wanted to pour out the full flood of her grief. Her shattered and squandered love sought for winged words which should bear it to him, sanctified and hallowed anew. But no words came.
She looked wildly round the room, as if from some quarter of it help must come. The portraits of defunct actors smiled down on her; once so eloquent, they were dumb now dumb as her own frozen soul. The specimen lamp-shade in its frame greeted her, presaging a future to be passed at Frau Laue's side.
"I have nothing to say," she faltered. Then she thought of something after all. "Ask him ... ask him, please, why he didn't come himself to say good-bye. I know that he is not a coward."
Uncle made one of his queerest faces.
"As you have been so astoundingly sensible, little woman, I'll tell you the secret. He wanted to come and say good-bye--most dreadfully, of course. And I promised him that I'd try and bring you to the station."
In an instant she was making a dash for her straw hat.
"Stop!"