I wanted merely not to wake you.
Wouldn't you sleep a bit longer?" "No, I'm quite rested.
I'll get up at once."
I went into the room next door while she dressed.
Outside it was growing slowly dark.
From an open window opposite a gramophone was quacking the Hohenfriedberg March.
A chap with a bald head and braces was attending to the instrument.
Now he walked up and down the room doing Swedish exercises to the music.
His bald head shone out of the semi-darkness like an agitated moon.
I watched him indifferently.
I was feeling depressed and gloomy.
Pat came in.
She looked beautiful, quite fresh and not the least exhausted.
"You look splendid," said I surprised.
"I feel well too, Robby.
As if I had had a good night's sleep.
I change very quickly."
"Yes, by Jove.
So quick sometimes one can hardly keep up."
She leaned against my shoulder and looked at me.
"Too quick, Robby?"
"No.
Only too slow on my part.
I'm often a bit slow, Pat."
She smiled.
"Slow is sure.
And sure is good."
"About as sure as a cork on the water."
She shook her head.
"You are much surer than you think.
In fact you are altogether different from what you think.
I have seldom seen anyone who was so much in error about himself as you."
I took my arm from her shoulder.
"Yes, darling," said she, nodding. "That is so, really.
And now come, let's go and get something to eat."
"Where should we go then?" I asked.
"To Alfons'.
I must see all that again.
I feel as if I had been away for an eternity."
"Good," said I. "But have you the right hunger for it?
You can't go to Alfons' unless you are hungry. He'd throw' you out otherwise."
She laughed.
"But I'm terribly hungry."
"Then off we go."
I was suddenly very glad.
Our entry into Alfons' was triumphal.
He greeted us, vanished immediately, and returned half-strangled in a stiff collar and a green-spotted tie.
He would not have done that for the Emperor of Germany.
He was even a little embarrassed himself, at such an unheard-of mark of decadence.
"Well, Alfons, what have you got that's good?" asked Pat, propping her elbows on the table.