rary, of
extraordinarily good disposition.

SCHWARZ. She said she had grown up with an aunt.

SCHOEN. That was the woman I gave her to. She was her best pupil. The
mothers used to make her an example to their children. She has the
feeling for duty. It is simply and solely your mistake if you have till
now neglected to take her on her best sides.

SCHWARZ. (Sobbing.) O God!--

SCHOEN. (With emphasis.) No O God!! Nothing of the happiness you have
cost can be changed. Done is done. You over-rate yourself against your
better knowledge if you persuade yourself you will lose. You stand to
gain. But with "O God" nothing is gained. A greater friendliness I have
not yet shown you: I speak plainly and offer you my help. Don't show
yourself unworthy of it!

SCHWARZ. (From now on more and more broken up.) When I first knew her,
she told me she had never loved.

SCHOEN. When a widow says that--! It does her credit that she chose you
for a husband. Make the same claims on yourself and your happiness is
without a blot.

SCHWARZ. She says he made her wear short dresses.

SCHOEN. But he married her! That was her master-stroke. How she brought
the man to it is beyond me. You really must know it now: you are
enjoying the fruits of her diplomacy.

SCHWARZ. How did she get to know Dr. Goll then?

SCHOEN. Through me! It was after my wife's death, when I was making the
first advances to my present fiancee. She stuck herself in between. She
had fixed her mind on becoming my wife.

SCHWARZ. (As if seized with a horrible suspicion.) And then when her
husband died?

SCHOEN. You married half a million!!

SCHWARZ. (Wailing.) O, to have stayed where I was! To have died of
hunger!

SCHOEN. (Superior.) Do you think, then, that _I_ make no compromises?
Who is there that does not compromise? You have married half a million.
You are to-day one of the foremost artists. That can't be done without
money. You are not the man to sit in judgment on her. You can't
possibly treat an origin like Mignon's according to the notions of
bourgeois society.

SCHWARZ. (Quite distraught.) Who are you speaking of?

SCHOEN. Of her father! You're an artist, I say: your ideals are on a
different plane from those of a wage-worker.

SCHWARZ. I don't understand a word of all that.

SCHOEN. I am speaking of the inhuman conditions out of which, thanks to
her good management, the girl has developed into what she is!

SCHWARZ. Who?

SCHOEN. Who? Your wife