"So I have." Kurt von Seleneck stretched himself, and his eyes twinkled. "You can make that my excuse for not accompanying you on your first visit. You don’t need to pretend to me, after five years of married life, that you really want me to come with you, because you know you don’t. Just think of the things you can talk about if I am not there! Just think how wretchedly _de trop_ I should be between you two, and let me go—this time, at least." "You would have Wolff to talk to," Frau von Seleneck said, trying to draw her round, rosy face into lines of disappointment. "You must have a lot to say to each other." "Thank you!" her husband retorted, preparing to exchange his undress _Litewka_ for the blue coat which a stolid orderly was holding in readiness. "Wolff and I will have opportunities enough, and the prospect of being sent away ’to talk’ like children whilst you two women exchange confidences is too humiliating. Go alone, my dear." Frau von Seleneck, having attained her object, proceeded to raise all sorts of objections. "I think it is mean of you to desert me, Kurt," she said. "Frau von Arnim probably can’t speak a word of German, and my English is as rusty as it can be. I haven’t spoken it for years and years. We shall have to play Dumb Crambo or something, and I shall die of nervousness." "I hope not," Seleneck said, who was now busy with the gloves she had laid out for him. "No doubt you are too modest, and your English only needs a little polish to reach perfection. At any rate, you can but try, and, as far as I know, Frau von Arnim can help things along with her German. She has been in Karlsburg ever since May, and ought to have picked up something of the language." "Oh, if it comes to that, I dare say I shall manage quite well," said Frau von Seleneck, who was secretly very proud of her English, "but I wish she were _erne gute Deutsche_. I can’t think why Wolff married an Englishwoman. All English people are dreadful. I had an English governess who frightened me to death. At meal times she used to keep up a fire of unpleasant criticism, and glare at me as though I were a sort of heathen monstrosity. ’Elsa, don’t bolt your food! You eat like a wolf! Your manners would disgrace a bricklayer!’ I simply hated her, and I hate all English people. They are so rude and stiff and _ungemtlich_. One sees that they despise everybody except themselves, and one wonders how they manage it." Her husband laughed good-naturedly. "I don’t think they are as bad as you paint them," he said. "I believe some of them are quite decent fellows, and Frau von Arnim is, I know, charming. At any rate, do your best to be agreeable; there’s a kind soul. I expect she will feel rather forlorn at first." Frau von Seleneck bridled with indignation.