"You just say so and try to look gloomy, but in reality there is not a word of truth in it."
"Why, Effi—"
"As I will prove to you, If you had had the least bit of longing for your child—I will not speak of myself, for, after all, what is a woman to such a high lord, who was a bachelor for so many years and was in no hurry—"
"Well?"
"Yes, Geert, if you had had just the least bit of longing, you would not have left me for six weeks to enjoy widow-like my own sweet society in Hohen-Cremmen, with nobody about but Niemeyer and Jahnke, and now and then our friends in Schwantikow. Nobody at all came from Rathenow, which looked as though they were afraid of me, or I had grown too old."
"Ah, Effi, how you do talk! Do you know that you are a little coquette?"
"Thank heaven that you say so. You men consider a coquette the best thing a woman can be. And you yourself are not different from the rest, even if you do put on such a solemn and honorable air. I know very well, Geert—To tell the truth, you are—"
"Well, what?"
"Well, I prefer not to say. But I know you very well. To tell the truth, you are, as my Schwantikow uncle once said, an affectionate man, and were born under the star of love, and Uncle Belling was quite right when he said so. You merely do not like to show it and think it is not proper and spoils one's career. Have I struck it?"
Innstetten laughed. "You have struck it a little bit. And let me tell you, Effi, you seem to me entirely changed. Before little Annie came you were a child, but all of a sudden—"