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On the appointed day the married ladies sailed about the pension dressed like upholstered chairs, and the unmarried ladies like draped muslin dressing-table covers. Frau Godowska pinned a rose in the centre of her reticule; another blossom was tucked in the mazy folds of a white antimacassar thrown across her breast.
It was arranged that I should sit beside Frau Godowska, and that the Herr Professor and Sonia should join us when their share of the concert was over. "That will make you feel quite one of the performers," said the Herr Professor genially. "It is a great pity that the English nation is so unmusical. Never mind!
"Do you know," she said, "to-night it is stewed carrots and nut tart for supper. Suppose we go in and take our places," her sidelong, tragic stare accusing the Professor and me the while. I followed them across the lawn and up the steps. Frau Godowska was murmuring, "Such a wonderful, beloved man"; with her disengaged hand Fraulein Sonia was arranging the sweet pea "garniture."
Such a sensation did he create that he was recalled to play a Bavarian dance, which he acknowledged was to be taken as a breathing exercise rather than an artistic achievement. Frau Godowska kept time to it with a fan. Followed the very young gentleman who piped in a tenor voice that he loved somebody, "with blood in his heart and a thousand pains."
Now I wonder and this is a very interesting speculation is memory a blessing or excuse the word a curse?" Frau Godowska looked into the distance, then the corners of her mouth dropped and her skin puckered. She began to shed tears. "Ach Gott! Gracious lady, what have I said?" exclaimed the Herr Professor. Sonia took her mother's hand.
"I have never been to England," interrupted Fraulein Sonia, "but I have many English acquaintances. They are so cold!" She shivered. "Fish-blooded," snapped Frau Godowska. "Without soul, without heart, without grace. But you cannot equal their dress materials.
"A concert for the benefit of afflicted Catholic infants will take place in the salon at eight-thirty P.M. Artists: Fraulein Sonia Godowska, from Vienna; Herr Professor Windberg and his trombone; Frau Oberlehrer Weidel, and others." This notice was tied round the neck of the melancholy stag's head in the dining-room.
Haven't we, Sonia?" Sonia absorbed my outward and visible form with an inward and spiritual glance, then repeated the magnificent gesture for my benefit. The four of us sat on the bench, with that faint air of excitement of passengers established in a railway carriage on the qui vive for the train whistle. Frau Godowska sneezed.
I shrugged my shoulders, remarking with one eye that while the Professor had been talking the Godowskas had trailed across the lawn towards us. They confronted the Herr Professor as he stood up. "Good-evening," quavered Frau Godowska. "Wonderful weather! It has given me quite a touch of hay fever!" Fraulein Godowska said nothing.
She swooped over a rose growing in the embryo orchard then stretched out her hand with a magnificent gesture to the Herr Professor. He presented me. "This is my little English friend of whom I have spoken. She is the stranger in our midst. We have been eating cherries together." "How delightful," sighed Frau Godowska. "My daughter and I have often observed you through the bedroom window.
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