"O, mein Herr!"
He turned; he had not seen the lady in the deep basket-chair just within the door, but now, as she rose and came towards him, he recognized her. It was the wife of Bettermann, the inventor, the shape upon the balcony of the chalet who had overlooked their experiments and overheard the bargain they had made.
Herr Haase bowed. "Gnadige Frau?"
He remembered her as little and pleasantly pretty; her presence above them on the balcony had touched his German sentimentalism. She was pretty now, with her softness and blossom-like fragility, but with it was a tensity, a sort of frightened desperation.
She hesitated for words, facing him with lips that trembled, and large, painful eyes of nervousness. "He he is here," she said, at last. "My husband they sent a car to fetch him to them. He is up there now, with them!"
Herr Haase did not understand. "But yes, gracious lady," he answered.
"Why not? The Herr Baron wished to speak to him."
She put out a small gloved hand uncertainly and touched his sleeve.
"No," she said. "Tell me! I, I am so afraid. That other, the officer who cut Egon's face my husband's I mean, he has arrived? Tell me, mein Herr! Oh, I thought you would tell me; I saw you the other day, and those others never spoke to you, and you were the only one who looked kind and honest." She gulped and recovered. "He has arrived?"
"Well, now," began Herr Haase paternally. In all his official life he had never "told" anything. Her small face, German to its very coloring, pretty and pleading, tore at him.
"Yes, he has arrived," he said shortly. "I have I have just seen him."