“How is Clara?”
“Clara? She is quite well, I think.”
The solder for the pieces of this dialogue was a dreary grey matter that Bertha supplied. Their talk was an unnecessary column on the top of which she perched herself with glassy quietude.
She turned to him abruptly as though he had been hiding behind her, and tickling her neck with a piece of feather-grass.
“Why did you leave me, Sorbert?—Why did you leave me?”
He filled his pipe, and then said, feeling like a bad actor:
“I went away at that particular moment, as you know, because I had heard that Herr Kreisler⸺”
“Don’t speak to me about Kreisler—don’t mention his name, I beg you.—I hate that man.—Ugh!”
Genuine vehemence made Tarr have a look at her. Of course she would say that. She was using too much genuineness, though, not to be rather flush of it for the moment.
“But I don’t see⸺”