rstand
anybody, knowing nothing of their stomachs? In my husband's most severe
illness--the poultices--"

She dipped a piece of sugar in her coffee and watched it dissolve.

"Yet a young friend of mine who travelled to England for the funeral
of his brother told me that women wore bodices in public restaurants no
waiter could help looking into as he handed the soup."

"But only German waiters," I said. "English ones look over the top of
your head."

"There," she cried, "now you see your dependence on Germany. Not even an
efficient waiter can you have by yourselves."

"But I prefer them to look over your head."

"And that proves that you must be ashamed of your bodice."

I looked out over the garden full of wall-flowers and standard
rose-trees growing stiffly like German bouquets, feeling I did not care
one way or the other. I rather wanted to ask her if the young friend had
gone to England in the capacity of waiter to attend the funeral baked
meats, but decided it was not worth it. The weather was too hot to be
malicious, and who could be uncharitable, victimised by the flapping
sensations which Frau Fischer was enduring until six-thirty? As a gift
from heaven for my forbearance, down the path towards us came the Herr
Rat, angelically clad in a white silk suit. He and Frau Fischer were old
friends. She drew the folds of her dressing-gown together, and made room
for him on the little green bench.

"How cool you are looking," she said; "and if I may make the
remark--what a beautiful suit!"

"Surely I wore it last summer when you were here? I brought the silk
from China--smuggled it through the Russian customs by swathing it round
my body. And such a quantity: two dress lengths for my sister-in-law,
three suits for myself, a cloak for the housekeeper of my flat in
Munich. How I perspired! Every inch of it had to be washed afterwards."

"Surely you have had more adventures than any man in Germany. When I
think of the time that you spent in Turkey with a drunken guide who was
bitten by a mad dog and fell over a precipice into a field of attar of
roses, I lament that you have not written a book."

"Time--time. I am getting a few notes together. And now that you are
here we shall renew our quiet little talks after supper. Yes? It is
necessary and pleasant for a man to find relaxation in the company of
women occasionally."

"Indeed I realise that. Even here your life is too strenuous--you are so
sought after--so