“Such good Kranzkuchen!” cried Ursula greedily. “So good!”
“Right,” said Gudrun. “Can we have Kaffee mit Kranzkuchen?” she added to the waiter.
And she seated herself on the bench beside Gerald. Birkin, looking at them, felt a pain of tenderness for them.
“I think the place is really wonderful, Gerald,” he said; “prachtvoll and wunderbar and wunderschön and unbeschreiblich and all the other German adjectives.”
Gerald broke into a slight smile.
“I like it,” he said.
The tables, of white scrubbed wood, were placed round three sides of the room, as in a Gasthaus. Birkin and Ursula sat with their backs to the wall, which was of oiled wood, and Gerald and Gudrun sat in the corner next them, near to the stove. It was a fairly large place, with a tiny bar, just like a country inn, but quite simple and bare, and all of oiled wood, ceilings and walls and floor, the only furniture being the tables and benches going round three sides, the great green stove, and the bar and the doors on the fourth side. The windows were double, and quite uncurtained. It was early evening.
The coffee came—hot and good—and a whole ring of cake.
“A whole Kuchen!” cried Ursula. “They give you more than us! I want some of yours.”
There were other people in the place, ten altogether, so Birkin had found out: two artists, three students, a man and wife, and a Professor and two daughters—all Germans. The four English people, being newcomers, sat in their coign of vantage to watch. The Germans peeped in at the door, called a word to the waiter, and went away again. It was not meal-time, so they did not come into this dining-room, but betook themselves, when their boots were changed, to the Reunionsaal.