“Ein schönes Frauenzimmer,” said the Professor.
“Ja!” asserted Loerke, shortly.
Gerald walked with his queer, long wolf-steps across the bedroom to the window, stooped and looked out, then rose again, and turned to Gudrun, his eyes sharp with an abstract smile. He seemed very tall to her, she saw the glisten of his whitish eyebrows, that met between his brows.
“How do you like it?” he said.
He seemed to be laughing inside himself, quite unconsciously. She looked at him. He was a phenomenon to her, not a human being: a sort of creature, greedy.
“I like it very much,” she replied.
“Who do you like best downstairs?” he asked, standing tall and glistening above her, with his glistening stiff hair erect.
“Who do I like best?” she repeated, wanting to answer his question, and finding it difficult to collect herself. “Why I don’t know, I don’t know enough about them yet, to be able to say. Who do you like best?”
“Oh, I don’t care—I don’t like or dislike any of them. It doesn’t matter about me. I wanted to know about you.”
“But why?” she asked, going rather pale. The abstract, unconscious smile in his eyes was intensified.