“It doesn’t go any further. Won’t you come into the library?”
In the library she again took up her stand before the fire and warmed herself, and we sat in a row and were cold. She has a wonderfully good profile, which is irritating. The wind, however, is tempered to the shorn lamb by her eyes being set too closely together.
Irais lit a cigarette, and leaning back in her chair, contemplated her critically beneath her long eyelashes. “You are writing a book?” she asked presently.
“Well—yes, I suppose I may say that I am. Just my impressions, you know, of your country. Anything that strikes me as curious or amusing—I jot it down, and when I have time shall work it up into something, I daresay.”
“Are you not studying painting?”
“Yes, but I can’t study that for ever. We have an English proverb: ‘Life is short and Art is long’—too long, I sometimes think—and writing is a great relaxation when I am tired.”
“What shall you call it?”
“Oh, I thought of calling it Journeyings in Germany. It sounds well, and would be correct. Or Jottings from German Journeyings,—I haven’t quite decided yet which.”
“By the author of Prowls in Pomerania, you might add,” suggested Irais.
“And Drivel from Dresden,” said I.