"Not yet, but in a few days I will."
"That's a pity." She overturned the chessmen and stood up.
"What should we do?" I asked. "Go to the bar?"
"We often play cards," said Antonio. "The John's coming, you can feel it.
Cards are best then."
"Cards? Pat?" said I in surprise. "What cards can you play?
Black Peter and Patience, eh?"
"Poker, darling," announced Pat.
I laughed.
"She can, really," said Antonio. "Only she's a bit reckless.
She bluffs terribly."
"So do I," I replied. "We must try our hand."
We sat in a corner and started playing. Pat did not poker badly at all.
But she bluffed to glory.
After an hour Antonio pointed out the window.
It was snowing.
Slowly, as if still hesitating, the fat flakes fell almost vertically clown.
"There's not a breath of wind," said Antonio. "That means a lot of snow."
"Where will Koster be now?" asked Pat.
"He's well over the pass," said I.
For an instant I saw Karl quite distinctly trailing with Koster through the snow, and suddenly it all seemed unreal—that I should be sitting here, that Koster should be on the road and that Pat should be there.
She smiled at me happily, pressing her hand with the cards on to the table.
"Fire away, Robby."
The cannon ball bowled in, came to rest behind our table, and began rocking benevolently back and forth on his toes.
His wife was asleep no doubt, and he was in search of entertainment.
I laid down the cards and stared at him poisonously till he vanished.
"You're not very friendly," said Pat, pleased.
"No," said I. "Didn't mean to be."
We went into the bar and drank a few Specials. Then Pat had to go to bed.
I took leave of her in the hall.
She walked slowly up the stairs, and looked round and stopped before she turned into the corridor.
I waited a bit, then got my room key at the office.
The little secretary smiled.
"Number seventy-eight," said she.
It was the room next to Pat's.
"At Fraulein Rexroth's suggestion, no doubt?"
"No, Fraulein Rexroth is in the Mission House," she replied.
"Mission Houses have their uses sometimes," said I and went swiftly up.
My things were already unpacked.
Half an hour later I knocked on the communicating door between the two rooms.
"Who's there?" called Pat.
"The surveillance police," I replied.
The key grated in the lock and the door flew open.
"You, Robby?" stammered Pat, completely taken by surprise.
"Me," said I. "Conqueror of Fraulein Rexroth. Cognac and Porto-Ronco proprietor." I drew the bottles from the pockets of my dressing gown. "And now tell me at once, how many men have been here already?"
"None, except the football club and the philharmonic orchestra," announced Pat laughing. "Ach, darling, now the old times are here again."
She fell asleep on my shoulder.
I stayed awake a long time.
In one corner of the room a small lamp was burning.
The snowflakes knocked lightly on the window and in the soft golden brown twilight time seemed to stand still.