What would have happened next Heaven alone knows—for we could not have gone on gazing at each other until I backed myself out at the door by way of leave-taking—had not Anticlimax arrived in the person of Mr. Anastasius Papadopoulos in his eternal frock-coat. But his gloves were black.
As usual he fell on his knees and kissed his lady's hand. Then he rose and greeted me with solemn affability.
“C'est un privilege de rencontrer den gnadigsten Herrn,” said he.
Confining myself to one language, I responded by informing him that it was an honour always to meet so renowned a professor, and inquired politely after the health of Hephaestus.
“Ah, Signore!” he cried. “Do not ask me. It is a tragedy from which I shall never recover.”
He sat down on a footstool by the side of Madame Brandt and burst into tears, which coursed down his cheeks and moustache and hung like drops of dew from the point of his imperial.
“Is he dead?” asked Madame.
“I wish he were! No. It is only the iron self-restraint that I possess which prevented me from slaying him on the spot. But poor Santa Bianca! My gentle and accomplished Angora. He has killed her. I can scarcely raise my head through grief.”
Lola put her great arm round the little man's neck and patted him like a child, while he sobbed as if his heart would break.
When he recovered he gave us the details of the tragic end of Santa Bianca, and wound up by calling down the most ingeniously complicated and passionate curses on the head of the murderer. Lola Brandt strove to pacify him.