“Yes, it has no other significance,” said Franka. “Will you not sit down? And are you really going to take the ladies away?”
“Indeed, I am, and with the greatest pleasure. I am more homesick even than they are. Here one gets the blues, or is driven wild with rage.”
“But there are such interesting events still coming off,” remarked Franka. “An American inventor is going to tell us of the most unheard-of things, things that will quite revolutionize the future.”
Coriolan shrugged his shoulders: “There are nothing but unheard-of things here. It would be much better to teach people to go back to the past, to cultivate their historical sense, than to be always trying to stir up new rubbish. Is the man going to speak to-day?”
“No, Chlodwig Helmer is to speak to-day.”
“Well, that does not tempt me. On the Sielenburg he always preserved a discreet silence; only once he broke out and what he said—I don’t remember what it was—turned my stomach. I regard him as a radical.”
“Eduard was very much attached to him,” spoke up the Countess Adele in defense of the former secretary; “he would not have kept a radical so long.... But, children, we must be going now. It is lunch-time and there is still much to do about packing.”
She stood up. The others followed her example, and they took their leave. It was not a painful parting. Franka drew a breath of relief when the door closed behind her relatives. But the door opened again, and Fräulein Albertine came back with a deep air of mystery.
“Franka,” she whispered, “I have restrained myself all the time we were here, because I did not want to offend you; but I consider it my duty to warn you—it is for your best: do not eat too much, and take much exercise, you are beginning to grow stout! There, now I must hasten to overtake the others. Adieu! God bless you!” And she was off.
Franka had to smile: that was so like Albertine. She cast a glance at herself in the pier-glass and turned away not at all alarmed: there was no fault to be found with the elegance of her figure.