the same time,
smothering it beneath the bedclothes, and falling asleep at once, after
the fashion of healthy young people.

Now, at the beginning of the new day, with all her misgivings healed by
sleep, she thought calmly over the interview she had had with Frau von
Treumann before supper; for it was that interview that had been the
chief cause of her dejection. Frau von Treumann had told her an untruth,
a quite obvious and absurd untruth in the face of the correspondence, as
to the reason of her coming to Kleinwalde. She had said she had only
come at the instigation of her son, who looked upon Anna as a deserving
object of help. And Anna had been hurt, had been made miserable, by the
paltriness of this fib. Her great desire was to reach her friends' souls
quickly, to attain the beautiful intimacy in which the smallest fiction
is unnecessary; and so little did Frau von Treumann understand her, that
she had begun a friendship that was to be for life with an untruth that
would not have misled a child. But see the effect of sleep and a
gracious April morning. The very shabbiness and paltriness of the fib
made Anna's heart yearn over the poor lady. Surely the pride that tried
to hide its wounds with rags of such pitiful flimsiness was profoundly
pathetic? With such pride, all false from Anna's point of view, but real
and painful enough to its possessor, the necessity that drove her to
accept Anna's offer must have been more cruel than necessity, always
cruel, generally is. Her heart yearned over her friend as she dressed,
and she felt that the weakness that must lie was a weakness greatly
requiring love. For nobody, she argued, would ever lie unless driven to
it by fear of some suffering. If, then, it made her happy, and made her
life easier, let her think that Anna believed she had come for her sake.
What did it matter? No one was perfect, and many people were
surprisingly pathetic.

Meanwhile the day was glorious, and she went downstairs with the springy
step of hope. She was thinking exhilarating thoughts, thinking that
there were to be no ripples of misgivings and misunderstandings on the
clear surface of this first morning. They would all look into each
others' candid eyes at breakfast, and read a mutual consciousness of
interests henceforward to be shared, of happiness to be shared, of life
to be shared,--the life of devoted and tender sisters.

The hall door stood open, and the house was full of the smell of April