Anna Maria shook her head.
"Yes, yes!" he continued, stepping in front of the window, and his tall figure obstructed the sunlight so that the room grew dark all at once. "I have seen more of life, I know it. What should you think, Anna Maria, if you—" He paused and drew a letter from his pocket. "I had better read the letter to you. I was just looking for you, to talk with you about it. Professor Mattoni is dead!"
Anna Maria looked over to him sympathetically. Klaus had turned around and was looking out of the window; the paper in his hand shook slightly. She knew how deeply the news of this death touched him. Professor Mattoni had been his tutor, had lived in Bütze for years, and the pleasantest memories of his boyhood were connected with this man. As a youth he had had in him a truly fatherly friend and adviser, and had since visited him every year, in Berlin, where he held a position as professor in the E—— Institute.
Anna Maria took her brother's hand and pressed it silently. "Yet one true friend less," she then said; "we shall soon be quite alone, Klaus!"
"He was more than a friend to me, Anna Maria," he replied gently, "he was a father to me."
She nodded; she knew it well. "And the letter?" she asked.
"A last request, almost illegible; he wishes that I should take charge of his little daughter, till she—so he writes—till she is independent enough to take up the battle of life."
"His little daughter?" asked Anna Maria. "Had he still so young a child?"
"I am sorry to say," said Klaus, "that I know nothing at all of his family affairs. He married late in life, and probably had every reason for not presenting his better half: some said he picked her up somewhere in Hungary; others, that she had been a chorus singer in one of the inferior theatres in Berlin. I never spoke to him about it, and when I went to his house I saw in his study no indications that any female being presided there. I have never noticed anything on my frequent visits to show that such a person lived with Mattoni, and remember just once that while we were having a pleasant hour's chat, a child's cry came from the next room, whereupon he got up and knocked emphatically on the door. The screaming child was probably carried to a back room, for it grew still next door, and we talked on. Then I once heard that his wife was dead; I have never seen any outward tokens of affliction on him, but the child seems to be alive."
"And now, Klaus?"