Cäcilie meanwhile had seated herself at another table. Reising went up to her and gazed at her with most speaking looks. He was waiting for her to address him, and with reason--a pink note has its duties!
"It is very cool to-day," said Cäcilie, wrapping herself more closely in her cloak.
"You have been spoiled in Italy," said Reising.
"It is cold enough there, too. I stayed a year and a half with a friend in Florence and Rome, and have only recently returned home. I assure you I have been as nearly frozen on the Arno and the Tiber as one can be on a Polar expedition. Italy in the winter is a delusion."
"In summer, also--at least for many."
"But surely not for you?"
"In many respects, yes; especially as far as the Italian women are concerned. In pictures, indeed, or national costume, such as those of Rovert, or in Olympic ones, as those of Titian, there are beauties, but in reality it is different. In Milan, thin fair women, of Lombard blood, with black veils; in Genoa, well-nourished Italian Hanseatic ones, in white veils; in Rome, beautifully moulded heads upon a plump body! And then those masculine voices; if one does not look narrowly one often imagines it is a non-commissioned officer who speaks; they are wanting in everything soft and womanly. How different with us! Oh, how different!"
"Why do you look so strangely at me?"
"I thought, I would--"
These questions caused Reising to become confused. Plainly Cäcilie would not open the confidential interview.