Karl Steinmetz saw the coronet. He never took his quiet, unobtrusive glance from Paul’s face while he opened the letter and read it.
“A fresh difficulty,” said Paul, throwing the note across to his companion.
Steinmetz looked grave while he unfolded the thick stationery.
“Dear Paul [the letter ran]: I hear you are at Osterno and that the Moscow doctor is in your country. We are in great distress at Thors—cholera, I fear. The fame of your doctor has spread to my people, and they are clamoring for him. Can you bring or send him over? You know your room here is always in readiness. Come soon with the great doctor, and also Herr Steinmetz. In doing so you will give more than pleasure to your old friend,”
Catrina Lanovitch.
“P.S. Mother is afraid to go out of doors for fear of infection. She thinks she has a little cold.”
Steinmetz folded the letter very carefully, pressing the seam of it reflectively with his stout forefinger and thumb.
“I always think of the lie first,” he said. “It’s my nature or my misfortune. We can easily write and say that the Moscow doctor has left.”
He paused, scratching his brow pensively with his curved forefinger. It is to be feared that he was seeking not so much the truth as the most convenient perversion of the same.
“But then,” he went on, “by doing that we leave these poor devils to die in their—styes. Catrina cannot manage them. They are worse than our people.”