Several days passed. There was no talk of any visit to the invalid. He could speak to nobody, periods of unconsciousness interchanged with periods of delirium. Laura could no longer keep quiet or sit alone. She had at last made some acquaintances in the hotel, a secretary of the Danish Legation and a young widow whom she had met at the seaside. They in their turn had introduced her to a Russian musician who was passing through. So they were able to have a little game of bridge up in Laura’s sitting room in the evening.
“How is your husband getting on?” said the lady between the bids.
“Oh, I was there today ... he is much better....”
Georg heard these words through the half open door.
Then the telephone in Laura’s bedroom rang. With a sigh she dropped her cards and went in, carefully closing the door to the sitting room. The Russian did not play bridge, but was improvising on the piano.
Once more there was a terrible, pious, insistent voice on the telephone:
“The Count is conscious again. He only mumbles your name. He must speak to you. He can’t have long to live. You won’t let him die quite alone....”
Laura’s voice sounded like a cry of distress, half in despair, half in fury:
“Good God ... I ... I told you, nurse, that I was ill myself ... that I am in bed ... that the doctor has forbidden me.... But I will try to send somebody....”
She rushed in to Georg. She was pale, very much décolletée, dressed in black rustling silk and covered with jewels. She did not notice how her son quickly hid a parcel under the table. She stroked him on his arm and hand quickly and nervously.