“How long ago is it that you—how long have you had that stepmother?”
“My father married four years ago.”
“Married your—girl⸺?”
“That’s it.”
“And that’s why you have trouble? She makes the trouble. She is at the bottom of the trouble? Ah! You never told me that. Now I understand why. What’s she like? Is she nice?”
“Not bad.”
They got near the Berne.
“Let’s have a cup of coffee,” Kreisler said.
Suzanne sat down—with the hiding of her red hands, her guilty lofty silence, eyebrows raised as though with a slimy pescine enamel, inducing an impression of nefarious hurry and impermanence. Kreisler was sour and full of himself. His bag looked as though it should hold the properties or merchandise of some illicit trade or amusement.
Suzanne seemed to triumph at this information.