“I am so sorry—”
“That is the one thing you can say fluently in German! At least one thousand times have I heard you say it.”
“Oh—but I am—really. Not to be late, but to be obliged to come at all. I was so deliciously comfortable.”
“Deliciously—in bed—at this hour! What an admission for a man to make!”
“But to you I am only a boy,” murmured Ordham.
“Ach ja! But you would like to be thought a man. Nicht? When you have succeeded in raising a mustache you will want to be thought young again. I have taught hundreds of your sex, and not one has more sense than the other. But not one!”
“Is that the reason you have never married?”
Her mottled complexion turned a uniform purple, and she investigated his innocent orbs with her bright little black eyes. Then she demanded haughtily: “What is that to you? Am I here to answer personal questions?”
“But this is the morning for conversation, Fräulein. We had those hideous verbs yesterday. And I am so tired! That was so easy, so natural to say, for I know that at least one Herr Professor carries an arrow in his heart.”
The personage in question had eluded Fräulein Lutz with such conspicuous adroitness some years before that the affair had become historical. She felt a natural gratification that the story had altered its front with the lapse of time, but replied severely: “Enough! We will ask and answer questions of a less personal nature. Also! How many neckties do you possess? I have now taught you for four weeks and I have seen a new one every day.”