"I wonder that Heda did not remind you of the birthday, Harry!" remarks the major.
"Oh, she rejoices over every forgetfulness in those around her," Harry observes, with some malice: "she likes to stand alone in her extreme virtue."
"Motif of the Redeemer's Sufferings," Frau Rosamunda calls out. Zdena leans forward, and seems absorbed in Wagner. Harry cannot take his eyes off her.
"What a change!" he muses. "Can she--could she be suffering on my account?"
There is an agreeable flutter of his entire nervous system: it mingles with the sense of unhappiness which he drags about with him.
"Oh, what a double-dyed fool I was!" a voice within him cries out. "How could I be so vexed with her scrap of childish worldly wisdom, instead of simply laughing at her for it, teasing her a little about it, and then, after I had set her straight, forgiving her, oh, how tenderly!"
"Zdena is not quite herself. I do not know what ails her," said the major, stroking the girl's thin cheek.
"You have long been a hypochondriac on your own account; now you are trying it for other people," says Zdena, rising and going to the window, where she busies herself with some embroidery. "I have a little headache," she adds.
"Earthly Enjoyment motif," Frau Rosamunda calls out, enthusiastically, in a raised voice.
The major bursts into Homeric laughter, in which Zdena, whose overstrained nerves dispose her for tears as well as laughter, joins. Harry alone does not laugh: his head is too full of other matters.