Outside the door of their house they were joined by Mrs Koch and Deborah. Felix inserted his latchkey and preceded them into the hall.
“Na, was Frau Ladenberg amiable? Did you like her?” he inquired of Deb.
“Not—not very much.”
“Not? But she is English; she is your countrywoman.”
With infinite pains and pride had this sole Englishwoman in Dorzheim been excavated for the girl’s benefit. Deb felt acutely the reproach in his tones. The meeting ought to have been at least as momentous as that of Stanley and Livingstone in the desert. Deb herself, after only three days spent in thickly Teutonic company, had been quite excited at the prospect of drinking coffee with Herr Ladenberg’s wife from Manchester. She recognized now how unreasonable she had been to have expected instant affinity merely on the negative grounds that neither she nor Elly Ladenberg happened to be German.
At the same moment, Marianna was enquiring of Richard: “Well, and have you made a great friendship with Lothar von Relling?”
“No,” said Richard, who invariably curtailed speech to its utmost brevity.
“No? But you are almost of the same age!”
Richard grunted, and escaped to his room to dress for that meal which, neither dinner, tea, nor supper, mingled the richness and biliousness of all three.