“Can’t you strike a happy medium between rudeness and tenderness? After all, I haven’t had a glimpse of your blond beauty for three weeks. And while I don’t ask you to whisper sweet nothings, still, after twenty-one days—”
“You have been lonely? If only I thought that those weeks have been as wearisome to you—”
“Not lonely exactly,” I hurriedly interrupted, “but sort of wishing that some one would pat me on the head and tell me that I was a good doggie. You know what I mean. It is so easy to become accustomed to thoughtfulness and devotion, and so dreadfully hard to be happy without it, once one has had it. This has been a sort of training for what I may expect when Vienna has swallowed you up.”
“You are still obstinate? These three weeks have not changed you? Ach, Dawn! Kindchen!—”
But I knew that these were thin spots marked “Danger!” in our conversational pond. So, “Come,” said I. “I have two new aborigines for you to meet. They are the very shiniest and wildest of all our shiny-faced and wild aborigines. And you should see their trousers and neckties! If you dare to come back from Vienna wearing trousers like these!—”
“And is the party in honor of these new aborigines?” laughed Von Gerhard. “You did not explain in your note. Merely you asked me to come, knowing that I cared not if it were a lawn fete or a ball, so long as I might again be with you.”
We were on our way to the dining room, where the festivities were to be held. I stopped and turned a look of surprise upon him.
“Don’t you know that the Knapfs are leaving? Did I neglect to mention that this is a farewell party for Herr and Frau Knapf? We are losing our home, and we have just one week in which to find another.”
“But where will you go? And why did you not tell me this before?”
“I haven’t an idea where I shall lay my poor old head. In the lap of the gods, probably, for I don’t know how I shall find the time to interview landladies and pack my belongings in seven short days. The book will have to suffer for it. Just when it was getting along so beautifully, too.”