"I do not understand, it is different every time. You always give me more than is due me," replies she, shaking her head.
"Leave me this innocent pleasure. You are always in debt," says he, while he locks the notes in a drawer of her writing-desk.
Erwin never would acknowledge the equal rights of woman with regard to the cares of life. He was pleased that Elsa, who read the most abstract treatises on political economy, did not understand an iota of business. He had purposely left her in this darkness, and she did not fight against it. He paid her the interest of her property, insisted that she should spend it exclusively upon her poor and her own fancies, and she never asked what he did with the capital.
"May I write here?" he asks over his shoulder, sitting down at her writing-desk then, without waiting for an answer. "A lady's writing-desk without invitations and charitable circulars. The inspector has become confused about that farm business of your little protégé in Johannesthal." He writes quickly.
"The inspector is good for nothing," grumbles Elsa. "That is to say, he is newly married."
Erwin defends his bailiff.
"There, that is done. You can tell your little friend that it is all arranged. Hm! Elsa! Do you think that I would have been much more practical during our honeymoon than my inspector?"
"Ah, you," says Elsa, who evidently does not understand how her husband can compare himself to his overseer, Cibulka. He has laid aside his pen and now pushes his chair lazily up to hers.
"You will make marks in my carpet, you careless man," says she.
"Do not cry," he says, consolingly. "I will buy you a new one, as the banker said to his daughter when her husband died."