"Why's she talking so much about an alcove?" whispered Fanny to Maria as they sat by the bed waiting for Hermann, whom Eberhardt was to get and send back in the mourning coach.
"It's where she sleeps at Frau Irma's,—a sort of alcove, off the living room. She's got her old brown divan in it, you remember in Baden, but she needs a room of her own. When you get old you need to have a door to close, and then Frau Irma is not always easy."
"Easy? A porcupine," Fanny whispered back and added something about Croatians in general not complimentary to that former Crownland. Then she looked restlessly at her watch.
"Why doesn't he come? Maria, I'm afraid," she ended with a break in her voice.
"It is going badly with her," nervously admitted Maria, who had once been a great one at sick beds and who, when it was not so personal, loved to be in at a death.
Frau Stacher's breathing was indeed very noisy. It whistled through her thin chest, it came in gasps from her blue mouth.
"Do you think she's going to die?" cried Fanny suddenly in panic. "We'd better get a priest anyway, only the poor heathen die without one!"
Fanny had always been interested in foreign missions and was in the habit of giving propitiatory sums to the church when she got panicky, for the purpose of conversions....
A ring at the door, a firm, long ring caused Maria to jump up.
It was Hermann, Hermann of the old days, despite his right arm hanging straight, Hermann completely professional, quiet, strong, but loving too.