"I toasted 'Wein, Weib, und Gesang,'" he announced at length.
"Wine, woman, and song!" repeated Mrs. Saunders. "A mere abstract toast, which you would have confessed to at once. Please particularise?"
"The 'wine,'" said Trafford, "is the wine of champagne, which we drink to-night, '89 Cliquot. 'Woman,' is Eve in all her aspects and in all countries—Venus victrix, sea-born Aphrodite, Astarte of the Assyrians, Kali of the Hindoos. God bless her! God bless all whom she loves and all who love her!"
"And the song?" demanded Saunders.
"The song is the one I have heard one hundred and fifty times since I have been here," replied Trafford. "Its title is unknown to me, but the waiters hum it in the passages, the cabmen chant it from their box seats, the street-boys whistle it with variations in the Bahnhofstrasse."
"That sounds like the Rothlied," said Saunders. "It is a revolutionary air."
"I like it enormously," said Trafford.
"Of course you would," said Saunders. "You have the true Grimlander's love of anarchy. But if you wish, we will subsequently adjourn to the Eden Theatre of Varieties in the Karlstrasse. I am told that the Rothlied is being sung there by a beautiful damsel of the aristocratic name of Schmitt."
"I have seen her posters," said Trafford, "and I should like, I confess, to see the original. But what of Mrs. Saunders? Is the 'Eden' a respectable place of entertainment?"
"It is an Eden of more Adams than Eves," said Mrs. Saunders. "No, I do not propose to follow you into its smoky, beer-laden atmosphere. I am going to accompany Frau generalin von Bilderbaum to the opera to hear 'La Bohême.' But before I leave I want further enlightenment on the subject of your toast. 'Wein' is all right, and 'Gesang' is all right, but what about 'Weib'? I thought you had sworn off the sex."