Part 18 (2/2)

Sometimes I have my doubts whether I shall ever attain to the standard of Gustava Lischke.”

She sighed comically and nodded at her husband.

He threatened her: ”Mind what you are about, Klare. I will not permit disrespect. Gustava!” he added, chuckling, and turned to Reimers: ”We were neighbours as children,” he explained, ”Gustava and I; but now she denies the acquaintance. My old father--G.o.d bless him!--was a builder.

Gustava's papa dealt in b.u.t.ter and eggs; a worthy, most worthy man. But now, of course, according to the new fas.h.i.+on, they must pile it on, and Gustava's papa was a merchant.”

He laughed, and then went on, more bitterly: ”If you weren't present, Klare, I should use a strong expression to set the whole dirty pack in their true light. Gustava is unhappily only a symptom, and one among many. And I tell you, Klare, if you were to behave like her, then--then----”

”Well, what terrible thing would befall me?” asked the young wife.

Guntz checked himself. He smiled slily. ”Why, then I should make use of the right which the good old law allows me, and administer corporal punishment.”

Klare laughed aloud.

”Anyhow,” said she, ”the women really aren't as bad as you make them out, Fatty.”

The senior-lieutenant would not agree: ”Now, now, Klare, I was within earshot when all the divinities sat together discussing whether you would have hands roughened by ”service,” by polis.h.i.+ng gla.s.ses, was.h.i.+ng children, and such like.”

Klare was a little vexed. ”Well,” she cried, ”would you have had them eat me up out of affection at the first go-off?”

”That's just what does happen sometimes,” said her husband. ”The moment Frau Kauerhof first appeared on the scene, a perfect stranger to them all, they threw themselves upon her neck, and hugged and kissed her, as if they had been her adoring sisters. Of course, Frau Kauerhof was a von Luben, the daughter of a colonel and head of a department in the War Office, and you, my Klare--shame on you!--were a governess!”

But the young wife insisted more vehemently: ”Now do be reasonable!”

she cried. ”It has really become quite an _idee fixe_ with you that I have not been received with due respect. I can only a.s.sure you again and again that all the ladies have been most polite and amiable towards me.”

Guntz growled on: ”Geese, a pack of stupid geese!”

”For shame, Fatty!” Klare remonstrated.

But he continued to grumble. ”Has a single one of them embraced you as they did Frau Kauerhof? Has one of them even kissed you? Has one been really nice and friendly to you?”

”Look here,” cried Klare quite roused, ”I don't want any of them to fall on my neck when they scarcely know me. And as it happens, one has been kind to me, very kind indeed!”

”Pooh! Who, then?”

”Frau von Gropphusen!”

”Oh, I am not surprised. I except her. She is not a goose. But she's a crazy creature, all the same.”

”Fatty! Don't be abominable! What has the poor woman done to you?”

Guntz rose from his chair. He took a few turns up and down the room to work off the stiffness, and grumbled on: ”Done? To me? Nothing, of course. But she's hysterical out and out. That's it, hysterical!”

Klare warmly took up the defence of the accused woman. ”You may be right,” she said, ”but there's a reason for it.”

”Certainly, certainly,” answered Guntz. ”Her husband is--forgive the coa.r.s.e expression, Klare--a regular hog. But an hysterical woman is an utter horror to me.”

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