"Hm!" Felix looked gloomy, but did not know exactly how to put his vexation into words. He asked himself, "Have I the right to reprove my wife?"
"Ah, the bracelet seems to please you less since you know where it comes from," said Linda, smiling maliciously. "Poor Felix! Are you, perhaps, jealous of this handsome, silly Pistasch? He is about as dangerous to me as that dandy there," and she pointed to a dainty Meissner figure in knee breeches and flowered vest, who with cocked hat under his arm, smiled down from a bracket.
"Well, I certainly do not wish to disturb your little amusement," stammered Felix, "but you do not know how much gossip arises from intercourse between a woman like you and a man like Pistasch, and if he is really so indifferent to you--why--then--perhaps you might receive him somewhat less frequently."
"Hm!" said Linda, thoughtfully. "However indifferent that porcelain dandy yonder is to me, I have not the slightest inclination to throw him out of the window." She blew a few whiffs of smoke up to the ceiling.
"But there is no question of that," replied Felix, "only see him less often----"
Linda would not let him finish.
"But do you not see, my dear Felix," said she, knocking the ashes from her cigarette, "to the house of a woman like me, who--let us speak plainly--really does not belong to his set, a man like Pistasch either comes not at all or every day. I am of a sociable nature--I must associate with some one, or else I should die of ennui. If no ladies will come, then I will receive men."
"I cannot understand why you do not get on better with Elsa," remarked Felix, uneasily.
"I was there recently; she has not returned my visit," said Linda. "I cannot force her to come. I believe she is vexed with me because Erwin amuses himself with me. Heaven knows our intercourse is of wholly an innocent nature!"
The young woman rocked softly back and forth in her chair and laughed to herself, striking the finger-tips of her loosely clasped hands together.