He accepted the balm of her compassion like a candid and innocent man: "Yes, it was pretty rough. But I didn't mind it, except on your account. I thought the delay would make you uneasy." With that he went out to the head of the stairs and called, "Davis!"
"Yes!" responded the consul; and he ascended the stairs in such trepidation that he tripped and fell part of the way up.
"Have you been saying anything to that man about my going away?"
"No, I've simply been blowing him up on the fiacre driver's account. He swears they are innocent of collusion. But of course they're not."
"Well, all right. Mrs. Kenton is waiting for us to go to dinner. And look here," whispered the colonel, "don't you open your mouth, except to put something into it, till I give you the cue."
The dinner was charming, and had suffered little or nothing from the delay. Mrs. Kenton was in raptures with it, and after a thimbleful of the good Hungarian wine had attuned her tongue, she began to sing the praises of the Kaiserin Elisabeth.
"The K——" began the consul, who had hitherto guarded himself very well. But the colonel arrested him at that letter with a terrible look. He returned the look with a glance of intelligence, and resumed: "The Kaiserin Elisabeth has the best cook in Vienna."
"And everybody about has such nice, honest faces," said Mrs. Kenton. "I'm sure I couldn't have felt anxious if you hadn't come till midnight: I knew I was perfectly secure here."
"Quite right, quite right," said the consul. "All classes of the Viennese are so faithful. Now, I dare say you could have trusted that driver of yours, who brought you here before daylight this morning, with untold gold. No stranger need fear any of the tricks ordinarily practised upon travellers in Vienna. They are a truthful, honest, virtuous population,—like all the Germans in fact."
"There, Ned! What do you say to that, with your Black Forest nonsense?" triumphed Mrs. Kenton.