He stroked her face lovingly then. He loved so to do that.
"Will you mind much, Karl," she began, a little timidly, "if I am away from you some this year?"
"Away from me?" he asked, startled. "Why, what do you mean, Ernestine?"
"Oh, not that I am going away," she hastened. "But, as I say, I am going to begin my work on Monday, and part of the time I shall be working, away from home."
"You mean in some studio?"
Her face grew troubled; she frowned a little, bit her lip, but after a second's hesitation, answered: "Yes."
"Found some fellow to study with?"
And again she answered yes.
"Well now look here, liebchen, have I been such a brute that you thought I wouldn't want you to set foot out of the house? I didn't suppose there was anyone here you'd have much to gain from, but if there is, so much the better. I want you to go right ahead and do your best—don't you know that?"
But there was a note of forced cheer in it. It would be hard for Karl to feel she was not in the house, when he had come to depend on her for so many things. She could not tell him why she was willing to be away from him. It hurt her to think he might feel she did not understand.