After dinner they took their coffee on the balcony, where Katherine, after making some objections, appeared in her travelling costume: a Rembrandt hat and a dust cloak with a travelling satchel slung over her shoulder. She looked charming. Balafré was more enchanted than ever and begged her not to be too much surprised if the next morning she should find him anxiously squeezed into the corner of the coupé as an escort for the journey.
"Provided that he gets his furlough," laughed Pitt.
"Or that he deserts," added Serge, "which would really be the first thing that would make his devotion complete."
And so they chatted for a while longer. Then they bade their hospitable host and hostess good-bye and agreed to go together as far as the bridge at Lützow Square. Here, however, they divided into two groups, and while Balafré, Wedell and Osten sauntered further along the canal, Pitt and Serge, who were going to Kroll's, went toward the Thiergarten.
"What a charming creature that Katherine is," said Serge. "Rienäcker seems rather prosaic beside her, and then he looks at her so discontentedly and so reprovingly, as if he needed to make excuses to every one for the little woman, who to a discerning eye is really cleverer than he."
Pitt kept silence.
"And what in the world does she want at Schwalbach or Schlangenbad?" Serge went on. "That does not help matters at all. And if it does, it is usually a rather peculiar sort of help."
Pitt glanced at him sidewise. "I think. Serge, that you are growing more and more Russian, or what amounts to the same thing, you are living up to your name more and more."
"But still not enough. But joking aside, my friend, I am in earnest about one thing: Rienäcker makes me angry. What has he against the charming little woman? Do you know?"
"Yes."