"Expecting me?" she replied. "Who? Oh no, I don't suppose my husband is at home. But pray, colonel, don't punish him for that!"
This was rather painful. However, Frau von Gropphusen afterwards said good-bye to them so simply and naturally that no one thought anything more about it.
The colonel accompanied her to the gate, and the four in the arbour went over to the balustrade. Güntz had put his arm tenderly round Frau Kläre, and Reimers was standing beside Marie Falkenhein. They watched Hannah Gropphusen mount her bicycle and ride slowly away. She turned round in the saddle, waved her right hand, and shouted out a laughing "Good-night."
A little further along she looked back, and the white-gloved hand waved again, but they could no longer distinguish her features.
Then the rushing wheels disappeared in the darkness.
Frau von Gropphusen rode quietly home.
The servant was waiting at the door. He took the machine from her, asking if she would take tea.
"No," she answered. "I have had it. You can clear the things away."
She threw herself on the couch in her room just as she was, in her bicycling costume. She drew up the rug and wrapped herself in it.
And Hannah Gropphusen lay thus till far into the night, staring with wide-open eyes into the darkness of the room.