Polly broke in: “Do talk in English,” she said pettishly. “You can’t think how tiresome it is to hear that rook’s language going on all the time!”
Her husband laughed. “Well, I suppose this marriage will make a difference to you?” he said in English.
“A difference?” exclaimed Anna ruefully. “Why, my good situation me it loses. Home to the Fatherland my present idea is——” her eyes filled with big tears.
Her host looked at her thoughtfully. What an old fool she was! But that, from his point of view, was certainly not to be regretted. She had served his purpose well—and more than once.
“Mrs. Otway she a friend has who a German maid had. The maid last week to Holland was sent, so no trouble can there be. However, one thing there is——” she looked dubiously at Polly. “Mrs. Head here knows, does she, about my——?”
And then at once between Alfred Head’s teeth came the angry command, in her own language, to speak German.
She went on eagerly, fluently now: “You will understand, Mr. Head, that I cannot behave wrongly to my dear nephew Willi’s superior. I have been wondering to-night whether I could hand the affair over to you. After all, a hundred marks a year are not to be despised in these times. You yourself say that after the War the money will be made up——” she looked at him expectantly.
He said rather quickly to his wife, “Look here, Polly! Never mind this—it’s business you wouldn’t understand!” And his wife shrugged her shoulders. She didn’t care what the old woman was saying to Alfred. She supposed it was something about the War—the War of which she was so heartily sick, and which had brought them, personally, such bad luck.
“It is difficult to decide such a thing in a hurry,” said Alfred Head slowly.
“But it will have to be decided in a hurry,” said Anna firmly. “What is to happen if to-morrow Mrs. Otway comes and tells me that I am to go away to London, to Louisa? English people are very funny, as you know well, Herr Hegner!” In her excitement she forgot his new name, and he winced a little when he heard the old appellation, but he did not rebuke her, and she went on: “Willi told me, and so did the gentleman, that on no account must I move that which was confided to me.”