“You’re hurting two now.” Letitia enjoyed fooling him. Her tears were now tears of pity for herself. “Woman, is that true?” he asked. Letitia peered furtively between her fingers, and thought mockingly: “It’s like the last act of a cheap opera.” She nodded with a gesture of pain, and determined to deceive him with the naval officer. Stephen gave a howl of triumph, danced about, threw himself down beside her, and kissed her arms, her shoulders, and her neck. At the windows and doors appeared Doña Barbara, Esmeralda, Stephen’s brothers, and the servants. He lifted Letitia on his strong shoulders, and carried her about on the verandah. He roared his orders: a feast was to be prepared, an ox slaughtered, champagne to be put on ice. Letitia had no qualms of conscience. She was glad to have made a fool of him. When old Gunderam learned the cause of the rejoicing in his house, he chuckled to himself. “Fooled all the same, my sly lawyer man. In spite of the written agreement, you won’t get the Escurial, not for a good while, even if she has a whole litter.” With an unappetizing, broken little comb he smoothed his iron grey beard, and poured eau de Cologne on his head, until his hair, which was still thick, dripped. But, strangely enough, the lie that Letitia had told in her terror turned out to be the truth. In a few days she was sure. Secretly she was amazed. Every morning she stood before the mirror, and looked at herself with a strange respect and a subtle horror. But she was unchanged. Her mood became gently melancholy, and she threw a kiss to her image in the glass. Since they were now afraid of crossing her wishes, she was permitted to attend a ball given by Señor and Señora Küchelbäcker, and it was there that she made the formal acquaintance of the naval lieutenant, Friedrich Pestel. VI Felix Imhof and the painter Weikhardt met at the exhibition of the “secessionists” in Munich. For a while they strolled through the rooms, and looked at the paintings; then they went out on the terrace, and sat down at a table that commanded a view of the park. It was in the early afternoon, and the odours of oil and turpentine from within blended with the fragrance of the sun-warmed plants. Imhof crossed his long legs, and yawned affectedly. “I’m going to leave this admirable home of art and letters for some months,” he declared. “I’m going to accompany the minister of colonial affairs to South West Africa. I’m anxious to see how things are going there. Those people need looking after. Then, too, it’s a new experience, and there will be hunting.” Weikhardt was utterly self-absorbed. He was full of his own annoyances, his inner and outer conflicts, and therefore spoke only of himself. “I am to copy a cycle by Luini for the old Countess Matuschka,” he said. “She has several blank walls in her castle in Galicia, and she wants tapestries for them. But the old creature is close as the bark on the tree, and her bargaining is repulsive.”