Kreisler regained the conservatory with great dignity.
But now Fräulein Lippmann, alone, appeared before him as he lay stretched in his chair, and said in a tight, breaking voice:
“I think, Herr Kreisler, you would do well now, as you have done nothing all the evening but render yourself objectionable, to relieve us of your company. I don’t know whether you’re drunk. I hope you are, for⸺”
“You hope I’m drunk, Fräulein?” he asked in an astonished voice.
He remained lolling at full length.
“A lady I was dancing with fell over, owing entirely to her own clumsiness and intractability—but perhaps she was drunk; I didn’t think of that.”
“So you’re not going?”
“Certainly, Fräulein—when you go! We’ll go together.”
“Scheusal!” Hurling hotly this epithet at him—her breath had risen many degrees in temperature at its passage, and her breast heaved in dashing it out (as though, in fact, the word “scheusal” had been the living thing, and she were emptying her breast of it violently), she left the room. His last exploit had been accomplished in a half disillusioned state. He merely went on farcing because he could think of nothing else to do. Anastasya’s laughter had upset and ended everything of his “imaginary life.” He told himself now that he hated her. “Ich hasse dich! Ich hasse dich!” he hissed over to himself, enjoying the wind of the “hasse” in his moustaches. But (there was no doubt about it) the laugh had crushed him. Ridiculous and hateful had been his goal. But now that he had succeeded he thought chiefly in the latter affair, he was overwhelmed. His vanity was wounded terribly. In laughing at him she had puffed out and transformed in an extraordinary way, also, his infatuation. For the first time since he had first set eyes on her he realized her sex. His sensuality had been directly stirred. He wanted to kiss her now. He must get his mouth on hers—he must revel in the laugh, where it grew! She was néfaste. She was in fact evidently the devil.