'And now the times mould us. We are all horribly alike. There is only yourself who retain any individuality amidst all the women that I know. 'La meule du pressoir de l'abrutissement might have been written of our world. After all, you are wise to keep out of it. My straw chair at Trouville looks trumpery beside that ivory chair in your Rittersäal. I read the other day of some actresses dining off a truffled pheasant and a sack of bon-bons. That is the sort of dinner we make all the year round, morally—metaphorically—how do you say it? It makes us thirsty, and perhaps, I am not sure, perhaps it leaves us half starved, though we nibble the sweetmeats, and don't know it.
'Your dinner must lack two things—bread and water.'
'Yes: we never see either. It is all truffles and caramels and vins frappés.'
'There is your bread.'
She glanced at the little children, two pretty, graceful little maids of six and seven years old.
'Ouf!' said the Countess Zelenka. 'They are only little bits of puff paste, a couple of petits fours baked on the boulevards. If they be chic, and marry well, I for one shall ask no more of them. If ever you have children, I suppose you will rear them on science and the Antonines?'
'Perhaps on the open air and Homer,' said Wanda, with a smile.
The Countess Brancka was silent a moment, then said abruptly:
'You dismissed Egon again?'
'Has he made you his ambassadress?'