"Ilka, light the candles," said Mother Uberta, sullenly. "And you," she continued, turning again to Mr. Hahn, "find yourself a seat, until we can see what you look like."
"What a vixen of an old woman!" whispered the proprietor of the "Haute Noblesse" to his son, as they seated themselves on the hard wooden bench near the window.
"Small chance for the 'Haute Noblesse,' I fear," responded Fritz, flinging his travelling cap on the clean-scoured deal table.
Ilka, who in the meanwhile had obeyed her mother's injunction, now came forward with two lighted tallow dips, stuck in shining brass candle-sticks, and placed them on the table before the travellers. She made a neat little courtesy before each of them, to which they responded with patronizing nods.
"Parbleu! Elle est charmante!" exclaimed Fritz, fixing a bold stare on the girl's blushing face.
"Bien charmante," replied Mr. Hahn, who took a great pride in the little French he had picked up when he carried a napkin over his shoulder.
And indeed, Ilka was charmante as she stood there in the dim candle-light, her great innocent eyes dilated with child-like wonder, her thick blond braids hanging over her shoulders, and the picturesque Tyrolese costume—a black embroidered velvet waist, blue apron, and short black skirt—setting off her fine figure to admirable advantage. She was a tall, fresh-looking girl, of stately build, without being stout, with a healthy blooming countenance and an open, guileless expression. Most people would have pronounced her beautiful, but her beauty was of that rudimentary, unindividualized kind which is found so frequently among the peasantry of all nations. To Fritz Hahn, however who was not a philosophical observer, she seemed the most transcendent phenomenon his eyes had ever beheld.
"To make a long story short, madam," began Mr. Hahn after a pause, during which Mother Uberta had been bristling silently while firing defiant glances at the two strangers, "I am the proprietor of a great establishment in Berlin—the 'Haute Noblesse'—you may have heard of it."
"No, I never heard of it," responded Mother Uberta, emphatically, as if anxious to express her disapproval, on general principles, of whatever statements Mr. Hahn might choose to make.
"Well, well, madam," resumed the latter, a trifle disconcerted, "it makes very little difference whether you have heard of it or not. I see, however, that you are a woman of excellent common sense, and I will therefore be as brief as possible—avoid circumlocutions, so to speak."