Instead of replying, Erika begins to arrange the sheets of music on the piano.
A long pause ensues. From below come the murmur of voices, the ringing of bells, and the moving of trunks,--in short, all the bustle consequent upon the arrival of fresh guests at a large hotel. Countess Lenzdorff takes the opportunity to complain of so much noise, and to declare, "In fact, I am quite tired of this wandering about from place to place."
"What, grandmother? Why, you were so delighted here! Only yesterday you told me how 'refreshing' you considered your Venetian life."
"Yes, yes; but it has lasted too long for me. While you were playing lawn-tennis this afternoon with Constance Mühlberg, I went to see Hedwig Norbin. She arrived yesterday, and is at the 'Europe;' but she is only stopping for a day or so on her way home. 'Tis a pity."
"And she gave you such an alluring description of Berlin that you are anxious to fold your tent and fly back to Bellevue Street now, in the midst of this wondrous Southern spring?" Erika asks, coldly.
"Oh, spring is lovely everywhere!--lovelier in Berlin than in Venice: there is nothing more beautiful than the Thiergarten in May. And then I find there all my old habits, my old friends."
"I have no friends in Berlin," says Erika, with a strange emphasis, "and that is why I beg you to stay away from Berlin for a while longer. Next autumn you may do with me what you please. Have a little patience with me."
"Patience! patience!" The old Countess taps her book more energetically than ever.
After a while Erika begins: "Did Frau von Norbin tell you anything about Dorothea von Sydow? How is her position regarded by society?"
"How?" her grandmother exclaims. "How should society regard the critical position of a woman who has never shown the slightest consideration for any one, never conferred a benefit upon any one, scarcely even treated any one with courtesy, but lived only for her own frivolous gratification? Society acknowledges a woman in her position only when it would lose something by dropping her. Who would lose anything if Dorothea were stricken from its list? A couple of young men, perhaps; and they would be at liberty to make love to her outside of the ranks of society. The world has turned its back upon her: Hedwig tells me that she is positively shunned."