Mr Blumenthal was reveling in hot fat. After he had bowed and smiled greasily, he tucked his napkin tighter under his chin and fell once more upon the gravy. He sopped his bread in it and scooped it up with his knife. But after there was no more gravy he wished to converse. He scrubbed his lips with one end of the napkin and called across to Ruth, who shrank behind her mother: “Vell, Miss Dene, you have today a shammy seen, not?”
Ruth kept out of sight, but Mrs Dene nodded, good-naturedly.
“Ja! soh! and haf you auch dose leetle deer mit der mamma seen? I haf myself such leetle deer myself many times shoot, me and my neffe. But not here. It is not permitted.” No one answered. Ruth asked Anna for the salt.
“My neffe, he eats such lots of salt—” began Mr Blumenthal.
“Herr Förster,” interrupted Mrs Dene—“Is the room ready for our friend who is coming this evening?”
“Your vriendt, he is from New York?”
“Ja, ja, Gnädige Frau!” said the Forester, hastily.
“I haf a broader in New York. Blumenthal and Cohen, you know dem, yes?”
Mrs Dene and her daughter rose and went quietly out into the porch, while the Frau Förster, with cold, round gray eyes and a tight mouth, was whispering to her frowning spouse that it was none of his business, and why get himself into trouble? Besides, Mrs Dene’s Herr Gemahl, meaning the absent colonel, would come back in a day or two; let him attend to Mr Blumenthal.
Outside, under the windows, were long benches set against the house with tables before them. One was crowded with students who had come from everywhere on the foot-tours dear to Germans.