Timéa's eyes shone with the prophetic fire of a magnetic dream. She pictured these mysterious proceedings to herself as partly a rite, partly an enigma of the heart, and trembled all over. Sophie laughed in her sleeve and found this most amusing; a pity she should be disturbed in it. Manly steps approached the kitchen door, and some one came in.
What a surprise! it was Herr Katschuka.
The mistress of the house was horrified, for she had only slippers on, and her apron full of maize. Which should she hide first? But Timéa was more frightened, though she had nothing to hide.
"Excuse me," said Katschuka, with familiar ease; "I found the doors all shut on the other side, so I came round by the kitchen."
"You see," screeched Frau Sophie, "my daughter has gone to visit her friends. I sent the maids to church, and we two are the only ones at home; so we just sat down in the kitchen. Pray excuse our négligée, Herr Captain."
"Don't disturb yourself, I will remain here with you."
"Oh, no, I could not allow it. Here in the kitchen! We have not even a chair for the captain."
But Herr Katschuka knew what to do in any emergency. "Don't make a stranger of me, Mamma Sophie. Here, this can will do for a seat," and he sat down opposite Timéa on a pail, and even set the hostess at ease with respect to the ears of maize. "That is excellent for dessert; give me a handful in my cap. I like it very much."
Frau Sophie was on the broad grin when she saw that the captain did not disdain to take the vulgar sweets in his military cap, and eat a quantity without even shelling them. It made him very popular with his mother-in-law. "I was in the midst of an interesting conversation with Timéa," began Sophie; "she was asking me about—a baptism."
Timéa was on the point of rushing away, if Frau Sophie had told the truth; but she would not have been the mother of a marriageable daughter if she had not possessed the art of turning the conversation at the entrance of an unexpected visitor.