Lorm took the dish, regarded it with polite interest, drew up his lips a little, and said: “It’s pretty.” Herbst’s face puckered into innumerable ironical little wrinkles.
Judith grew angry. “Pretty? Don’t you see that it’s magical, a perfect little dream, the sweetest and rarest thing imaginable? The connoisseurs were wild after it! Do you know what it cost? Eighteen hundred marks. And I had six or seven rabid competitors bidding against me. Pretty!” She gave a hard little laugh. “Give it to me. You handle it too clumsily.”
“Calm yourself, sweetheart,” said Lorm gently. “I suppose its virtues are subtle.”
But Judith was hurt, more by Herbst’s silent mockery than by Lorm’s lack of appreciation. She threw back her head, rustled through the room, and slammed the door behind her. When she was angry, her own manners had, at times, a touch of commonness.
For a while the two men were silent. Then Lorm, embarrassed and with a deprecating smile, said: “A little dream ... for eighteen hundred marks.... Oh, well! There’s something childlike about her.”
Emanuel Herbst rubbed his tongue up and down between his teeth and his upper lip. It made him look like an ancient baby. Then he ventured: “You ought to make it clear to her that eighteen hundred marks are one thousand eight hundred times one mark.”
“She won’t get that far,” answered Lorm. “Somebody who has always lived on the open sea, and is suddenly transported to a little inland lake, finds it hard to get the new measurements and perspectives. But women are queer creatures.” He sighed and smiled. “Have a nip of whiskey, old man?”
Sorrowfully Herbst rocked his Cæsarean head. “Why queer? They are as they are, and one must treat them accordingly. Only one mustn’t be under any mistaken impression as to what one has. For instance: A horseshoe is not birch wood. It looks like a bow, but you can’t bend it—not with all your might. If you string it, the string droops slackly and will never propel your arrow. All right, let’s have your whiskey.”
“But occasionally,” Lorm replied cheerfully, and filled the tiny glasses, “you can turn a horseshoe into the finest Damascene steel.”
“Bravo! A good retort! You’re as ready as Cardinal Richelieu. Your health!”