“You go downstairs, leave me alone. Tell Anna not to let Hans grub the sugar—give him one on the ear.”
“Ugly—ugly—ugly,” muttered Sabina, returning to the café where the Young Man stood coat-buttoned, ready for departure.
“I’ll come again to-morrow,” said he. “Don’t twist your hair back so tightly; it will lose all its curl.”
“Well, you are a funny one,” she said. “Good-night.”
By the time Sabina was ready for bed Anna was snoring. She brushed out her long hair and gathered it in her hands.... Perhaps it would be a pity if it lost all its curl. Then she looked down at her straight chemise, and drawing it off, sat down on the side of the bed.
“I wish,” she whispered, smiling sleepily, “there was a great big looking-glass in this room.”
Lying down in the darkness, she hugged her little body.
“I wouldn’t be the Frau for one hundred marks—not for a thousand marks. To look like that.”
And half-dreaming, she imagined herself heaving up in her chair with the port wine bottle in her hand as the Young Man entered the café.
Cold and dark the next morning. Sabina woke, tired, feeling as though something heavy had been pressing under her heart all night. There was a sound of footsteps shuffling along the passage. Herr Lehmann! She must have overslept herself. Yes, he was rattling the door-handle.