“Several, monsieur.”
“And after that?”
“The children will grow up.”
“Yes. And then?”
“Mrs Thistleton will give Fräulein Friedenburg a good character.”
“Meanwhile you work for nothing?”
“No. For clothes, for food, to pay my debt.”
“And how do you like it?”
That question of mine, which sounds brutal, was inspired and, as I still believe, excused by the satirical amusement in her eyes; our previous meetings had shown me no such expression. Her answer to the question had its irony too. She turned over a dozen pages of the big book and came on a picture. She held the book out to me, saying—
“That’s my home.”