"No, Johanna, she is not really false. And she has pulled you out of a hole more than once. You know what I mean."
"Good gracious, why did she do it? Because she was stuck in the same hole herself, and because she always gives herself airs and thinks she is so important. Anyone as stout as that is never good."
"Lord, Johanna, how you do talk. It is just the other way around, stout people are always good."
"Well, have it your own way. But you cannot deny that she is a comical figure to look at. Just see how she waddles; like a fat duck. And always buttoned up to her chin because otherwise she would not look fit to be seen among decent people. And, Margot, I will not give way on that point, a slender figure is really the principal thing. We are not Turks, you know. And why wouldn't she go with us to the churchyard? Because she is afraid. Heaven forbid, she isn't thinking of any such thing, it's because she's buttoned up so tight and she can't stand the heat. And yet it isn't really so terribly hot to-day."
So the conversations went, until the two couples came together again and seated themselves on a moss-grown bank.
Isabeau kept looking at her watch; it seemed as if the hands would never move.
But when it was half past eleven, she said: "Now, my friends, it is time; I think we have had enough of nature and may quite properly pass on to something else. We have never had a bite to eat since early this morning at about seven. For those ham sandwiches at Grunauer do not count.... But the Lord be praised, self-denial brings its own reward, as Balafré says, and hunger is the best cook. Come, ladies, the saddle of venison is beginning to be more important than anything else. Don't you think so, Johanna?"
The latter shrugged her shoulders, and sought to turn aside the suspicion that any such things as venison and punch could ever matter to her.
But Isabeau laughed. "Well, we shall see, Johanna. Of course the Zeuthner churchyard would have been more enjoyable. But one must take what one can get."
And hereupon they all started to return from the woods through the garden, where a pair of yellow butterflies were fluttering together, and from the garden to the front of the house where they were to take luncheon.