"The room will never let again."
"Very good."
The officers said good day, and went.
We went out likewise.
Orlow locked the door and gave Frau Zalewski the key.
"It would be as well if as little as possible were said about the whole affair," said I.
"I think so, too," said Frau Zalewski.
"I mean you, particularly, Frida," I added.
Frida waked out of a sort of absent-mindedness.
Her eyes were shining.
She did not answer.
"If you say one word to Fraulein Hollmann," said I, "then God help you."
"Think I don't know that?" She spat. "The poor lady is much too ill."
Her eyes flashed.
I had to control myself not to box her ears.
"Poor Hasse," said Frau Zalewski.
It was quite dark in the passage.
"You were pretty rude to Count Orlow," said I to the accountant. "Wouldn't you like to apologise to him?"
The old man stared at me.
Then he exploded,
"A German never apologises.
Certainly not to an Asiatic," and slammed the door of his room behind him.
"What's come over our old stamp-collector?" I asked in amazement. "Why, he used to be as mild as a lamb!"
"He's been running round to every political meeting there has been, for months now," replied Georg out of the dark.
"Ach, so!"
Orlow and Erna Bonig had gone already.
Frau Zalewski started to weep.
"Don't take it to heart too much," said I. "It's all past mending now."
"It is too dreadful," she sobbed. "I must move, I will never get over the sight."
"You'll get over it all right," said I. "I saw some hundreds of people like that once. Gassed Englishmen.
I got over it all right."
I shook hands with Georg and went to my room.
It was dark.
Involuntarily I glanced toward the window before I switched on the light.
Then I listened across into Pat's room. She was asleep.
I went to the cupboard, took out the bottle of cognac and poured myself a glass.
It was good cognac, and it was good to have it.
I put the bottle on the table.
The last glass out of it Hasse had drunk.
I reflected that it would have been better not to have left him by himself.
I felt depressed, but I could not reproach myself.
I had done so many things that I knew either everything one did was cause for reproach, or there was none at all.
It had been Hasse's bad luck that it had happened to him on a Sunday.
On a weekday he would have gone to the office and perhaps have gotten over it.
I drank another cognac.
There was no use thinking about it.
Who knows what may not be in store for himself?
No man knows but that the person he is sorry for, now, may not some day be thought lucky.
I heard Pat stir, and went across.
She looked up at me.