Meanwhile Dellwig, looking through the door and seeing Lohm, brought his heels together and bowed with his customary exaggeration. "I beg a thousand times pardon," he said; "I thought the gracious Miss was engaged and would not return, and I was about to go home."
"I have found the paper, and am coming," said Anna coldly. "Well, good-night," she added in English, holding out her hand to Axel.
"If you will allow me, I should like to pay my respects to Princess Ludwig before I go," he said, thinking thus to see her later.
"Ah! wasn't I right?" she said, smiling. "You are determined to look at the new arrivals. How can a man be so inquisitive? But I will say good-night all the same. I shall be ages with Herr Dellwig, and shall not see you again." She shook hands with him, and went into the dining-room, Dellwig standing aside with deep respect to let her pass. But she turned to say something to him as he shut the door, and Axel caught the expression of her face, the intense boredom on it, the profound distrust of self; and he went in to the princess with an unusually severe and determined look on his own.
Dellwig went home that night in a savage mood. "That young man," he said to his wife, flinging his hat and coat on to a chair and himself on to a sofa, "is thrusting himself more and more into our affairs."
"That Lohm?" she asked, rolling up her work preparatory to fetching his evening drink.
"I had almost got the Miss to consent to the brick-kiln. She was quite reasonable, and went out to get the plan I had made. Then she met him—he is always hanging about."
"And then?" inquired Frau Dell wig eagerly.
"Pah—this petticoat government—having to beg and pray for the smallest concession—it makes an honest man sick."
"She will not consent?"