style="font-size:15px;"> “Yes, Fritz will be there. He is always there; I cannot help that.”
“No, Lotta; I will not go to Sperl’s. I will tell you a little secret. At forty-five one is too old for Sperl’s.”
“There are men there every Sunday over fifty—over sixty, I am sure.”
“They are men different in their ways of life from me, my dear. No, I will not go to Sperl’s. When will you come and see my mother?”
Lotta promised that she would go and see the Frau Crippel before long, and then tripped off and joined her party.
Stobel and Marie had walked on, while Fritz remained a little behind for Lotta.
“Did you ask him to come to Sperl’s to-morrow?” he said.
“To be sure I did.”
“Was that nice of you, Lotta?”
“Why not nice? Nice or not, I did it. Why should not I ask him, if I please?”
“Because I thought I was to have the pleasure of entertaining you; that it was a little party of my own.”
“Very well, Herr Planken,” said Lotta, drawing herself a little away from him; “if a friend of mine is not welcome at your little party, I certainly shall not join it myself.”
“But, Lotta, does not everyone know what it is that Crippel wishes of you?”
“There is no harm in his wishing. My friends tell me that I am very foolish not to give him what he wishes. But I still have the chance.”
“Oh yes, no doubt you still have the chance.”
“Herr Crippel is a very good man. He is the best son in the world, and he makes two hundred florins a month.”
“Oh, if that is to count!”
“Of course it is to count. Why should it not count? Would the Princess Theresa have married the other day if the young prince had had no income to support her?”
“You can do as you please, Lotta.”
“Yes, I can do as I please, certainly. I suppose Adela Bruhl will be at Sperl’s to-morrow?”
“I should say so, certainly. I hardly ever knew her to miss her Sunday evening.”
“Nor I. I, too, am fond of dancing—very. I delight in dancing. But I am not a slave to Sperl’s, and then I do not care to dance with everyone.”
“Adela Bruhl dances very well,” said Fritz.
“That is as one may think. She ought to; for she begins at ten, and goes on till two, always. If there is no one nice for dancing she puts up with some one that is not nice. But all that is nothing to me.”
“Nothing, I should say, Lotta.”
“Nothing in the world. But this is something; last Sunday you danced three times with Adela.”
“Did I? I did not count.”
“I counted. It is my business to watch those things, if you are to be ever anything to me, Fritz. I will not pretend that I am indifferent. I am not indifferent. I care very much about it. Fritz, if you dance to-morrow with Adela you will not dance with me again—either then or ever.” And having uttered this threat she ran on and found Marie, who had just reached the door of the house in which they both lived.
Fritz, as he walked home by himself, was in doubt as to the course which it would be his duty as a man to pursue in reference to the lady whom he loved. He had distinctly heard that lady ask an old admirer of hers to go to Sperl’s and dance with her; and yet, within ten minutes afterwards, she had peremptorily commanded him not to dance with another girl! Now, Fritz Planken had a very good opinion of himself, as he was well entitled to have, and was quite aware that other pretty girls besides Lotta Schmidt were within his reach. He did not receive two hundred florins a month, as did Herr Crippel, but then he was five-and-twenty instead of five-and-forty; and, in the matter of money, too, he was doing pretty well. He did love Lotta Schmidt. It would not be easy for him to part with her. But she, too, loved him, as he told himself, and she would hardly push matters to extremities. At any rate, he would not submit to a threat. He would dance with Adela Bruhl, at Sperl’s. He thought, at least, that when the time should come he would find it well to dance with her.
Sperl’s dancing saloon, in the Tabor Strasse, is a great institution at Vienna. It is open always of a Sunday evening, and dancing there commences at ten, and is continued till two or three o’clock in the morning. There are two large rooms, in one of which the dancers dance, and in the other the dancers and visitors who do not dance, eat, and drink, and smoke continually. But the most wonderful part of Sperl’s establishment is this, that there is nothing there to offend anyone. Girls dance and men smoke, and there is eating and drinking, and everybody is as well behaved as though there was a protecting phalanx of dowagers sitting round the walls of the saloon. There are no dowagers, though there may probably be a policeman somewhere about the place. To a stranger it is very remarkable that there is so little of what we call flirting;—almost none of it. It would seem that to the girls dancing is so much a matter of business, that here at Sperl’s they can think of nothing else. To mind their steps, and at the same time their dresses, lest they should be trod upon, to keep full pace with the music, to make all the proper turns at every proper time, and to have the foot fall on the floor at the exact instant; all this is enough, without further excitement. You will see a girl dancing with a man as though the man were a chair, or a stick, or some necessary piece of furniture. She condescends to use his services, but as soon as the dance is over she sends him away. She hardly speaks a word to him, if a word! She has come there to dance, and not to talk; unless, indeed, like Marie Weber and Lotta Schmidt, she has a recognised lover there of her very own.
At about half-past ten Marie and Lotta entered the saloon, and paid their kreutzers and sat themselves down on seats in the further saloon, from which through open archways they could see the dancers. Neither Carl nor Fritz had come as yet, and the girls were quite content to wait. It was to be presumed that they would be there before the men, and they both understood that the real dancing was not commenced early in the evening. It might be all very well for such as Adela Bruhl to dance with anyone who came at ten o’clock, but Lotta Schmidt would not care to amuse herself after that fashion. As to Marie, she was to be married after another week, and of course she would dance with no one but Carl Stobel.
“Look at her,” said Lotta, pointing with her foot to a fair girl, very pretty, but with hair somewhat untidy, who at this moment was waltzing in the other room. “That lad is a waiter from the Minden hotel. I know him. She would dance with anyone.”
“I suppose she likes dancing, and there is no harm in the boy,” said Marie.
“No, there is no harm, and if she likes it I do not begrudge it her. See what red hands she has.”
“She is of that complexion,” said Marie.
“Yes, she is of that complexion all over; look at her face. At any rate she might have better shoes on. Did you ever see anybody so untidy?”
“She is very pretty,” said Marie.
“Yes, she is
