Georg drank to her attentively and obediently, carefully sipping his glass:
“Put a white orchid in your buttonhole.”
Georg obeyed again. Laura threw a kiss to him: “Just look how sweet the boy looks!”
Georg grew purple in the face and looked at his plate. Laura clapped her hands:
“And he blushes like a little girl!”
Count Alexis followed this flirtation with languid eyes and a little tired smile:
“Well, that is something our good Georg has not inherited from you.”
Evidently the Count had no illusions.
Then there was a new silence, only interrupted by the almost inimical ringing of glasses and knives. But Laura did not give in. She looked about her with bright defiant eyes. Then she suddenly turned to Hedvig and began to talk of Levy. It was really deliciously impudent of her to start just that topic. Laura teased Hedvig a little about her lawyer, warned her in playful phrases against his business genius and then said a few malevolent little truths about Jews in general.
“You see Alexis is an anti-Semite and I’ve caught it from him,” she ended up with a soft smile.