“Then get her out. Talk to her about wine, in the cellar or somewhere.”
“Easier said than done. I think she has intercepted your wireless symbols. They are visible to the naked eye. One could almost catch them in a butterfly net.”
“Do you suggest that I was winking, or trying to make eyes?”
For one moment, it looked as if his wish were to be gratified. The mother rose from her seat and, opening the door, made as though to enter the kitchen; everything, unfortunately, must have been in order there, for after two paces in the passage she returned to her place beside me once more. That fire—yes! Nowadays, of course, the danger of conflagrations on this scale was growing less and less;[17] the villages were all lighted by electricity, down to the very stables; those inflammable wooden houses, too, were being supplanted by brick or stone, “or the abominable cement,” I added——
Meanwhile, that fusillade proceeded without interruption. The “baby” was brightening up under its friendly glow, smiling her innocent smile and sometimes glancing at me as if for confirmation of her pleasure; the mother talked.
“Is the old one never going? Because, for the matter of that, I can do it without saying anything at all; and I will. I would give fifty years of my life.... Just one kiss. I don’t want anything more.”
“I should hope not. Listen to me for a moment,” I went on. “Only a puritan would see any great harm in young people kissing each other, with or without their parents’ consent; I feel sure that many happy marriages would never have come about at all but for some such playful preliminaries, and your Dorothea, I must say, looks as if she would not object very violently, provided you did it in a laughing, brotherly fashion. Why should she? Our girls are far too simple-minded to attach that sacramental importance to a kiss which the southern ones do. Observe therefore: I do not pose as a puritan. But please observe also that I am taking for granted that you are serious, both of you, like Hermann and Dorothea; otherwise, of course, I could never be a party——”
“Get her out. Get her out.”
“I should like to help you. But you know perfectly well that my acquaintance with the art of outwitting or circumventing parents is of the slightest, and that therefore, quite apart from any moral scruples I might entertain——”