For a short time she asked no more questions, then
“Do you like town or country best?”
“I don’t know. I have never lived in a town.”
“Do you like amusements—concerts, and theater, and opera?”
“I don’t know,” I was reluctantly obliged to confess, for I saw that the assembled youths, though not looking at me openly, and apparently entirely engrossed with their dinners, were listening attentively to what passed.
“You don’t know,” repeated Fräulein Sartorius, quickly seeing through my thin assumption of indifference, and proceeding to draw me out as much as possible. I wished Adelaide had been there to beat her from the field. She would have done it better than I could.
“No; because I have never been to any.”
“Haven’t you? How odd! How very odd! Isn’t it strange?” she added, appealing to the boys. “Fräulein has never been to a theater or a concert.”
I disdained to remark that my words were being perverted, but the game instinct rose in me. Raising my voice a little, I remarked:
“It is evident that I have not enjoyed your advantages, but I trust that the gentlemen” (with a bow to the listening boys) “will make allowances for the difference between us.”