“Where in the world did you hear that now?”
“My military servant told me. He happens to hail from the neighborhood she comes from.”
During this delectable interchange of gossip the wife of First Lieutenant Leimann had listened with gleaming eyes and heightened color; it seemed wonderfully interesting to her. Captain König, on the other hand, sucked his cigar thoughtfully, and his wife toyed with the embroidered border of the table-cover.
“Why so lost in thought, my gracious lady?” Borgert said.
“I was merely wondering what stories you gentlemen might hatch against us,” she said with some dignity.
He was about pathetically to disclaim any such fell designs, when it was noticed that Frau Kahle had risen to bid farewell, and with her Lieutenant Pommer, whose escort home she had accepted, her husband being off on a short official trip.
They were barely gone, when Borgert remarked:
“I think we ought to subscribe for this poor Kahle woman, just enough to enable her to buy a new dress. I don’t think she has anything to wear besides this faded, worn-out rag of hers. I am sick of seeing it.”
“But you ought to see her at home,” interjected Müller, in a minor key of disdain. “There she looks worse than a slovenly servant girl. And she doesn’t seem to find time to patch up her dirty gown, while her boy, the only child she has, runs about the streets like a cobbler’s apprentice from the lower town. One thing, though, that urchin does know—he can lie like Satan.”
“Inherited from his mother, of course,” remarked Borgert, when a cold and reproachful look out of Frau Clara’s eyes made him stop in the middle of his sentence. There was an embarrassed silence for a minute, and when the talk was resumed it no longer furnished such “interesting” material. Captain König’s yawning became more pronounced, and Leimann was leaning back in his chair, dozing, with mouth half open. His wife, too, showed unmistakable signs of ennui, now that the scandal she loved no longer poured forth. Her features, a moment ago smooth and animated, now looked worn and aged, losing all their charm. Müller was still digesting audibly, and hence it seemed the proper moment for adjourning.