There, in the well-known room, was the “old one” as well as her husband, and the baby looking prettier than ever since her holiday at Thüringerberg; there also were some twenty other people, peasant-folk, chatting at tables, and smoking and drinking beer. Sunday! We had overlooked this fact. And there they would sit, till all hours of the night. “Not much chance of embrassez-moi in here,” I thought, as I looked round. Mr. R. remained in the open doorway, and his disappointment took a tragic turn. He said bitterly:
“What are all our pleasant walks and talks worth now? Ah, I shall have nothing but unhappy memories of your country.”
“That you shall not,” I declared. “Nobody is to have unhappy memories of my country, if I can help it. Now this is a moment for heroic measures, and one little thing has just dawned upon me; what cannot be done inside a room, may be done outside. Let us sit down, while you order your eggs. I have it. I have it already. Those eggs.... How lucky you are fond of eggs. How lucky you have a friend who knows why eggs were created!”
We gave our orders.
“What on earth am I to do?” asked Mr. R.
“You will presently leave the room, without turning round to look at anybody. Go into the orchard at the back of the house, and wait there. When the baby arrives, I give you thirty seconds together. Employ them in a laughing and brotherly fashion, as I told you the other day. Then you, at least, will return straight here. Thirty seconds. If you mean to obey to the letter, swear it. Else no baby till the crack of doom. Now, swear.”
Whereupon Mr. R. swore a great oath in the Mediterranean manner, on the head, or the honor—on both, I fancy—of his own mother, to obey to the letter.
“Thirty seconds,” I went on. “Imagine otherwise what might happen if the old one grew suspicious and went into the orchard! And she may well be suspicious, after those marconigrams of the other day. What would she think of us two conspirators? How about my reputation here, in the only country where, by good luck, I have not yet been found out; where my family name is a byword for all that is upright and honorable; where my father, my grandfather.... Just let me hear you swear again.”
Whereupon he swore a second great oath, to the same effect as the first, on the souls of all his dead ancestors, male and female.
“Thirty seconds.... You can go now. And listen! Clasp her firmly if you get the chance, or you may bungle the whole affair, and these are the little accidents one never forgives oneself. After all, it would be a queer baby who objected to being embraced for thirty seconds by such an affectionate elder brother. Why should she?”