As
she passed she gave him such an imploring look, such an appealing look,
that all his chivalric instincts rushed into the field of his
consciousness. He awkwardly dropped his tumbler. He turned around, half
expecting to see the big child still looking at him. Instead he gazed
upon the athletic backs of her male companions and to the unpleasant
accompaniment of hearty feminine laughter. Were these women laughing at
him? No fool like a fat one, he merrily thought, as he bought a new
glass at a bazaar, which a grinning, monkey-faced creature sold him at
the regular price redoubled.
Before his meagre breakfast of one egg and a dry rusk, Krayne
endeavoured to evoke the features of the pretty creature who had so
strongly attracted him. He saw a tangle of black hair, a glance that
touched his heart with its pathos, a pair of soft, parted red lips, and
dazzling teeth. It was an impression sufficiently powerful to keep him
company all the forenoon. Fat men, he reasoned on the steep pass that
conducts to the Cafe Forstwarte, are always sentimental, by no means
always amiable, and, as a rule, subject to sudden fancies.
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