"The anemones are coming out——"
"Ach——"
"They really are."
"Suppose instead of teasing me as though I were still ten and you a great bully, you talked sensibly. The Hohensteins give a bal masqué to-night, and I gave it up to come to you."
"Oh, my dear, that was really kind," said Lohm, touched by the tremendousness of this sacrifice.
"Then be a good boy," said Trudi caressingly, edging herself closer to him, "and tell me you are going to be wise about Bibi. Don't throw such a chance away—it's positively wicked."
"My dear Trudi, you'll have us in the ditch. It is very nice when you lean against me, but I can't drive. By the way, you remember my old Kleinwalde neighbour? The old man who spoilt you so atrociously?"
"Bibi will make a most excellent wife," said Trudi, ungratefully indifferent to the memory of old Joachim. "Oh, what a cold wind there is to-day. Do drive faster, Axel. What a taste, to live here and to like it into the bargain!"
"You know that I must live here."
"But you needn't like it."