BUDDENBROOKS
linen for the guest-room. The Frau Consul still sat at the breakfast table, her light eyes fixed on a spot on the ceiling. She was lightly drumming with her white fingers on the cloth. Tony sat at the window, her arms folded, gazing straight ahead of her with a severe air. Silence reigned.
“Well?” said Thomas, standing in the door and taking a cigarette out of the box ornamented with the troika. His shoulders shook with laughter.
“A pleasant man,” commented the Frau Consul innocently.
“Quite my opinion.” The Consul made a quick, humorous turn toward Tony, as if he were asking her in the most respectful manner for her opinion as well. She was silent, and looked neither to the right nor to the left.
“But I think, Tom, he ought to stop swearing,” went on the Frau Consul with mild disapproval. “If I understood him correctly, he kept using the words Sacrament and Cross.”
“Oh, that’s nothing, Mother—he doesn’t mean anything by that.”
“And perhaps a little too easy-mannered, Tom?”
“Oh, yes; that is south-German,” said the Consul, breathing the smoke slowly out into the room. He smiled at his mother and stole glances at Tony. His mother saw the glances not at all.
“You will come to dinner to-day with Gerda. Please do me the favour, Tom.”
“Certainly, Mother, with the greatest of pleasure. To tell the truth, I promise myself much pleasure from this guest, don’t you? He is something different from your ministers, in any case,”
“Everybody to his taste, Tom.”
“Of course. I must go now.—Oh, Tony,” he said, the door-handle in his hand, “you have made a great impression on him. No, no joke. Do you know what he called you down there just now? A great girl! Those were his very words.”
But here Frau Grünlich turned around and said clearly: “Very good, Tom. You are repeating his words—and I don’t
331
