We are going to practise now, properly.
First of all, starting and stopping."
Patricia Hollmann stalled the engine several times.
She unbuttoned her fur coat.
"It is making me hot!
But I must learn it."
She sat eager and attentive, watching first what I did.
Then with excited little cries she took her first corners and was as afraid of approaching headlights as if they had been the devil, and as proud when she had successfully passed them.
Soon there arose in the little space dimly lighted by the lamp in the switchboard a feeling of comradeship, which springs up quickly where technical, matter-of-fact things are concerned; and after half an hour, when we changed places and I drove back, we were as familiar with one another as if we had unbosomed our whole life histories.
In the neighbourhood of Nikolaistrasse I stopped the car again.
We were directly under a red movie advertisement.
The asphalt gleamed a pale purple.
On the curb shone a big black spot.
"So," said I. "Now.we have honestly earned a glass of something to drink.
Where should we do that?"
Patricia Hollmann considered a moment.
"Let us go again to that lovely bar with the sailing ship," she suggested.
For one moment I was in utmost alarm.
In the bar was now sitting, for a dead cert., the last of the romantics.
I saw his face already . . .
"Ach," said I swiftly, "that's nothing to write home about.
There are lots of better places."
"I don't know—I thought it very nice recently."
"Really?" I asked taken aback. "You thought it very, nice recently?" "Yes," she replied with a laugh. "Very."
Indeed, thought I, and that's what I've been blaming myself for!
"But I think around this time it is very full," I tried once more.
"We could see anyway," she replied.
"Yes, we could do that."
I considered what I should do.
As we approached I got out quickly.
"I'll just take a quick look.
I'll be back in a minute."
There was nobody there I knew except Valentin.
"I say, has Gottfried been here yet?" I asked.
Valentin nodded.
"With Otto.
They left half an hour ago."
"Pity," said I breathing again. "I should like to have seen them."
I went back to the car.
"We might risk it," I explained. "It's not so bad to-day."
As a precaution I parked the Cadillac round the next corner in the deepest shadow.
But we had not been sitting ten minutes when Lenz's straw-blond head appeared at the counter.
Damn, thought I, now for it.
A few weeks later would have suited me better.
Gottfried seemed not to want to remain.
Already I fancied myself delivered when I saw Valentin drawing his attention to me.
So much for my lying.
Gottfried's expression when he caught sight of us would have been a study for an ambitious film star.
His eyes stood in his "head like two poached eggs and I was afraid his bottom jaw would drop off.
It was a pity there wasn't a producer sitting in