"Yes. It is disgusting."
"It is very disgusting. It is not right that Treumanns should be forced to associate on equal terms with such a person."
"It is scandalous. But you will change all that."
Karlchen twisted up the ends of his moustache and looked down his nose. He often looked down his nose because of his eyelashes. He began to hum a tune, and felt happy again. Axel Lohm was right when he doubted whether there had ever been a permanently crushed Treumann.
"She has a strange assortment of alte Schachteln here," he said, after a pause during which his thoughts were rosy. "That Elmreich, now. What relation does she say she is to Arthur Elmreich?"
"The man who shot himself? Oh, she is no relation at all. At most a distant cousin."
"Na, na," was Karlchen's reply; a reply whose English equivalent would be a profoundly sceptical wink.
His mother looked at him, waiting for more.
"What do you really think——?" she began, and then stopped.
He stood before the glass readjusting his moustache into the regulation truculent upward twist. "Think?" he said. "You know Arthur's sister Lolli was engaged at the Wintergarten this winter. She was not much of a success. Too old. But she was down on the bills as Baroness Elmreich, and people went to see her because of that, and because of her brother."