With that Johanna left the room. Effi took one more look into the mirror and then walked across the hall, which in the daylight lost much of its charm of the evening before, and stepped into Geert's room.
He was sitting at his secretary, a rather clumsy cylindrical desk, which, however, he did not care to part with, as it was an heirloom. Effi was standing behind him, and had embraced and kissed him before he could rise from his chair.
"So early?"
"So early, you say. Of course, to mock me."
Innstetten shook his head. "How can I?" Effi took pleasure in accusing herself, however, and refused to listen to the assurances of her husband that his "so early" had been meant in all seriousness. "You must know from our journey that I have never kept you waiting in the morning. In the course of the day—well, that is a different matter. It is true, I am not very punctual, but I am not a late sleeper. In that respect my parents have given me good training, I think."
"In that respect? In everything, my sweet Effi."
"You say that just because we are still on our honeymoon,—why no, we are past that already. For heaven's sake, Geert, I hadn't given it a single thought, and—why, we have been married for over six weeks, six weeks and a day. Yes, that alters the case. So I shall not take it as flattery, I shall take it as the truth."
At this moment Frederick came in and brought the coffee. The breakfast table stood across the corner of the sitting room in front of a sofa made just in the right shape and size to fill that corner. They both sat down upon the sofa.
"The coffee is simply delicious," said Effi, as she looked at the room and its furnishings. "This is as good as hotel coffee or that we had at Bottegone's—you remember, don't you, in Florence, with the view of the cathedral? I must write mama about it. We don't have such coffee in Hohen-Cremmen. On the whole, Geert, I am just beginning to realize what a distinguished husband I married. In our home everything was just barely passable."
"Nonsense, Effi. I never saw better house-keeping than in your home."