BLUNTSCHLI.
My father’s dead. (He looks at the telegram with his lips pursed, musing on the unexpected change in his arrangements.)
RAINA.
Oh, how very sad!
BLUNTSCHLI.
Yes: I shall have to start for home in an hour. He has left a lot of big hotels behind him to be looked after. (Takes up a heavy letter in a long blue envelope.) Here’s a whacking letter from the family solicitor. (He pulls out the enclosures and glances over them.) Great Heavens! Seventy! Two hundred! (In a crescendo of dismay.) Four hundred! Four thousand!! Nine thousand six hundred!!! What on earth shall I do with them all?
RAINA.
(timidly). Nine thousand hotels?
BLUNTSCHLI.
Hotels! Nonsense. If you only knew!—oh, it’s too ridiculous! Excuse me: I must give my fellow orders about starting. (He leaves the room hastily, with the documents in his hand.)
LOUKA.
(tauntingly). He has not much heart, that Swiss, though he is so fond of the Servians. He has not a word of grief for his poor father.
RAINA.
(bitterly). Grief!—a man who has been doing nothing but killing people for years! What does he care? What does any soldier care? (She goes to the door, evidently restraining her tears with difficulty.)
LOUKA.
Major Saranoff has been fighting, too; and he has plenty of heart left. (Raina, at the door, looks haughtily at her and goes out.) Aha! I thought you wouldn’t get much feeling out of your soldier. (She is following Raina when Nicola enters with an armful of logs for the fire.)
NICOLA.
(grinning amorously at her). I’ve been trying all the afternoon to get a minute alone with you, my girl. (His countenance changes as he notices her arm.) Why, what fashion is that of wearing your sleeve, child?
LOUKA.
(proudly). My own fashion.