“An hour and a half, just like a professional runner.... Indeed,” he looked down meditatively, “if one had anything to carry, it might take two.”
“And you went only to find that out?”
“That was all, my love, that was all!” and his eye sparkled meaningly.
Then they seated themselves in the veranda, which Paul had had erected before the door, on the model of the White House. The old house-keeper, who had formerly managed the Erdmanns’ establishment, and who after they were married had emigrated to the Haidehof, had to go into the kitchen to make coffee and waffle cakes, and as their father did not know what to talk about to his daughters, he abused Paul and his sons-in-law. To-day he did it less from absolute love of abuse than from old habit; his thoughts seemed to be wandering somewhere else, and while he spoke he wriggled on his chair with uncomfortable activity.
“Let us go in,” said Kate; “we must look after household matters a little, and the wind is blowing us away here.”
“There will be a storm to-night,” said Greta. And then they both turned round terrified, for the laugh which the old man gave sounded so very strange.
“Let there be a storm,” he said, a little embarrassed; “that won’t matter at all. There are storms in married life too, sometimes, are there not?”
In Kate’s face there lurked something of her old mischievous look, but Greta drew down the corners of her mouth, as if she were going to cry. She seemed not quite to have got over the last.
“Yes, autumn will be early this year,” she said, with a touch of melancholy.
The old man whistled “Wenn die Schwalben Heimwarts Ziehn” (When the Swallows Homeward Fly), and Katie said: