she had liked him pretty well, this young Moor or Mord. He had such a sly, good-natured laugh when he asked for the water and called it by letters and numbers, so that his father got quite furious. But it was only the scientific formula for water – that is, for ordinary water, for the Travemünde product was a much more complicated affair, of course. Why, one could find a jelly-fish in it, any time! The authorities, of course, might have what notions they chose about fresh water. For this he only got another scolding from his father, for speaking slightingly of the authorities. But Frau Schwarzkopf watched Tony all the time, to see how much she admired the young man – and really, it was most interesting, he was so learned and so jolly, all at the same time. He had given her considerable attention. She had complained that her head felt hot, while eating, and that she must have too much blood. What had he replied? He had given her a careful scrutiny, and then said, Yes, the arteries in the temples might be full; but that did not prove that she had too much blood. Perhaps, instead, it meant she had too little – or rather, that there were too few red corpuscles in it. In fact, she was perhaps a little anæmic.
The cuckoo sprang out of his carven house on the wall and cuckooed several times, clear and loud. “Seven, eight, nine,” counted Tony. “Up with you!” She jumped out of bed and opened the blinds. The sky was partly overcast, but the sun was visible. She looked out over the Leuchtenfeld with its tower, to the ruffled sea beyond. On the right it was bounded by the curve of the Mecklenburg coast; but before her it stretched on and on till its blue and green streaks mingled with the misty horizon. “I’ll bathe afterwards,” she thought, “but first I’ll eat a big breakfast, so as not to be consumed by my metabolism.” She washed and dressed with quick, eager movements.
It was shortly after half-past nine when she left her room. The door of the chamber in which Tom had slept stood open; he had risen early and driven back to town. Even up here in the upper story, it smelled of coffee – that seemed to be the characteristic odour of the little house, for it grew stronger as she descended the simple staircase with its plain board baluster and went down the corridor, where lay the living-room, which was also the dining-room and the office of the pilot-captain. She went out into the verandah, looking, in her white piqué frock, perfectly fresh, and in the gayest of tempers. Frau Schwarzkopf sat with her son at the table. It was already partly cleared away, and the housewife wore a blue checked kitchen apron over her brown frock. A key-basket stood beside her.
“A thousand pardons for not waiting,” she said, as she stood up. “We simple folk rise early. There is so much to be done! Schwarzkopf is in his office. I hope you don’t take it ill?”
Tony excused herself in her turn. “You must not think I always sleep so late as this,” she said. “I feel very guilty. But the punch last night –”
The young man began to laugh. He stood behind the table with his short pipe in his hand and a newspaper before him.
“Good morning,” Tony said. “Yes, it is your fault. You kept urging me. Now I deserve only cold coffee. I ought to have had breakfast and a bathe as well, by this time.”
“Oh, no, that would be rather too early, for a young lady. At seven o’clock the water was rather cold – eleven degrees. That’s pretty sharp, after a warm bed. ”
“How do you know I wanted a warm bath, monsieur?” and Tony sat down beside Frau Schwarzkopf. “Oh, you have kept the coffee hot for me, Frau Schwarzkopf! But I will pour it out myself, thank you so much.”
The housewife looked on as her guest began to eat. “Fräulein slept well, the first night? The mattress, dear knows, is only stuffed with sea-weed – we are simple folk! And now, good appetite, and a good morning. You will surely find many friends on the beach. If you like, my son shall bear you company. Pardon me for not sitting longer, but I must look after the dinner. The joint is in the oven. We will feed you as well as we can.”
“I shall stick to the honeycomb,” Tony said when the two were alone. “You know what you are getting.”
Young Schwarzkopf laid his pipe on the verandah rail.
“But please smoke. I don’t mind it at all. At home, when I come down to breakfast, Papa’s cigar-smoke is already in the room. Tell me,” she said suddenly. “Is it true that an egg is as good as a quarter of a pound of meat?”
He grew red all over. “Are you making fun of me?” he asked, partly laughing but partly vexed. “I got another wigging from my Father last night for what he calls my silly professional airs.”
“No, really, I was asking because I wanted to know.” Tony stopped eating in consternation. “How could anybody call them airs? I should be so glad to learn something. I’m such a goose, you see. At Sesemi Weichbrodt’s I was always one of the very laziest. I’m sure you know a great deal.” Inwardly her thoughts ran: “Everybody puts his best foot foremost, before strangers. We all take care to say what will be pleasant to hear – that is a common place. …”
“Well, you see they are the same thing, in a way. The chemical constituents of food-stuffs –” And so on, while Tony breakfasted. Next they talked about Tony’s boarding-school days, and Sesemi Weichbrodt, and Gerda Arnoldsen, who had gone back to Amsterdam, and Armgard von Schilling, whose home, a large white house, could be seen from the beach here, at least in clear weather. Tony finished eating, wiped her mouth, and asked, pointing to the paper, “Is there any news?” Young Schwarzkopf shook his head and laughed cynically.
“Oh, no. What would there be? You know these little provincial news-sheets are wretched affairs.”
“Oh, are they? Papa and Mamma always take it in.”
He reddened again. “Oh, well, you see I always read it, too. Because I can’t get anything else. But it is not very thrilling to hear that So-and-So, the merchant prince, is about to celebrate his silver wedding. Yes, you laugh. But you ought to read other papers – the Königsberg Gazette, for instance, or the Rhenish Gazette. You’d find a different story there, entirely. There it’s what the King of Prussia says.”
“What does he say?”
“Well – er – I really couldn’t repeat it to a lady.” He got red again. “He expressed himself rather strongly on the subject of this same press,” he went on with another cynical laugh, which, for a moment, made a painful impression on Tony. “The press, you know, doesn’t feel any too friendly toward the government or the nobility or the parsons and junkers. It knows pretty well how to lead the censor by the nose.”
“Well, and you? Aren’t you any too friendly with the nobility, either?”
“I?” he asked, and looked very embarrassed. Tony rose.
“Shall we talk about this again another time?” she suggested. “ Suppose I go down to the beach now. Look, the sky is blue nearly all over. It won’t rain any more. I am simply longing to jump into the water. Will you go down with me?”
7
SHE HAD PUT on her big straw hat, and she raised her sunshade; for it was very hot, though there was a little sea-breeze. Young Schwarzkopf, in his grey felt, book in hand, walked beside her and sometimes gave her a shy side-glance. They went along the front and walked through the garden of the Kurhouse, which lay there in the sun shadeless and still, with its rose-bushes and pebbly paths. The music pavilion, hidden among pine trees, stood opposite the Kurhouse, the pastry-cook’s, and the two Swiss cottages, which were connected by a long gallery. It was about half-past eleven, and the hotel guests were probably down on the beach.
They
