“‘See the Continental Press’! You should not swallow that rubbish. I only dispute your statement because I know it is not first-hand. What I mean about the Germans was that, like the Jews, they are extremely proud of success in deceit. No enthusiasm of that sort exists in England. Hypocrisy is usually a selfish stupidity, rather than the result of cunning.” “The English are _stupid_ hypocrites then! We agree. Prosit!” “The Germans are uncouth but zealous liars! Prosit!” He offered Kreisler a cigarette. A pause occurred to allow the acuter national susceptibilities to cool. “You haven’t yet given me your opinion of Bertha. You permitted yourself a truculent flourish that evaded the question.” “I wish to evade the question.—I told you that she has tricked you. She is very _malin_! She is tricking me now; or she is trying to. She will not succeed with _me_! ‘When you go to take a woman you should be careful not to forget your _whip_!’ _That_ Nietzsche said too!” “Are you going to give her a beating?” Tarr asked. Kreisler laughed in a ferocious and ironical manner. “You consider that you are being fooled, in some way, by Fräulein Lunken?” “She would if she could. She is nothing but deceit. She is a snake. _Pfui!_” “You consider her a very cunning and double-faced woman?” Kreisler nodded sulkily. “With the soul of a prostitute?” “She has an innocent face, like a Madonna. But she is a prostitute. I have the proofs of it!” “In what way has she tricked _me_?” “In the way that women always trick men!” With resentment partly and with hard picturesque levity Kreisler met Tarr’s discourse. This solitary drinker, particularly shabby, who could be “dismissed” so easily, whom Bertha with accents of sincerity, “hated, hated!” was so different to the sort of man that Tarr expected might attract her, that he began to wonder. A certain satisfaction accompanied these observations. For that week he saw Kreisler nearly every day. A _partie à trois_ then began. Bertha (whom Tarr saw constantly too) did not actually refuse admittance to Kreisler (although he usually had first to knock a good many times), yet she prayed him repeatedly not to come any more. Standing always in a drooping and desperate condition before him, she did her best to avert a new outburst on his part. She sought to mollify him as much as was consistent with the most absolute refusal. Tarr, unaware of how things actually stood, seconded his successor. Kreisler, on his side, was rendered obstinate by her often tearful refusal to have anything more whatever to do with him. He had come to regard Tarr as part of Bertha, a sort of masculine extension of her. At the café he would look out for him, and drink deeply in his presence. “I _will_ have her. _I will have her!_” he once shouted towards the end of the evening, springing up and calling loudly for the _garçon_. It was all Tarr could do to prevent him from going, with assurances of intercession.