"I was in the middle of making something extra for your supper," Elsa von Seleneck explained. "I shan’t tell you what it is, as it is a surprise, and may still turn out all right, though I should think it was very doubtful, because Bertha is such an unutterable fool. At any rate, had it been any one else I should have been very angry, but as it was Nora I didn’t mind so much. I told Bertha to bring her into the kitchen, but then she said she had brought her brother with her, so I came out. Well, of course I wasn’t as tidy as I might have been, but—look at me, please, Kurt. Is there anything in my appearance to warrant anybody giggling?" Seleneck looked at his wife gravely. She was very flushed and hot, and there was a suspicion of flour on the tip of her nose, which might have aggravated a ticklish sense of humour; but Seleneck knew better than to say so. "Certainly not!" he said. "Who dared giggle, pray?" "That—that boy!" Frau von Seleneck retorted. "Nora looked fearfully upset, and at first I thought she was ashamed of him, but afterwards I knew better—I knew she was ashamed of me!" "My dear!" her husband protested. "It’s true—perfectly true. You wouldn’t have recognised her. You know how sweet she was when she first came—so nice and grateful and simple—I really had quite a _Schwärmerei_ for her. Everybody had—they couldn’t help it. She won all hearts with her broken German and her girlish, happy ways. Well, to-day she was intolerable—stiff as a poker, my dear, and as disagreeable as a rheumatic old major on half-pay. I couldn’t get a friendly word out of her, and all the time I could see her studying my dress and the furniture, as though she were trying to find the prices on them. As for that boy, he went on giggling. Every time I made an English mistake, he sniggered"—the little woman’s voice rose with exasperation. "He tried to hide it behind his hand, but of course I saw, and it made me so angry I could have boxed his ears!" "Pity you didn’t," said Seleneck. "_Dummer Junge!_" "That wasn’t the worst. I tried to be friendly. I asked them both to dinner next week—and what do you think? She looked ever so uncomfortable, and said she was very sorry, but she was afraid they could not manage it. I don’t know what excuse she meant to give, but that—that boy went and blurted the truth out for her. It appears that he had been to a dinner party last week and had been bored to extinction. At any rate, he said that wild horses, or some such creatures, wouldn’t drag him to another business like that, and then he set to work and made fun of everything. My dear, I don’t know what dinner it was, but it was exactly like ours will be—exactly, from the soup to the cheese!" Seleneck pulled his moustache thoughtfully. "He wasn’t to know that," he said in faint excuse.