was as wonderfully dressed as ever. Giving her husband a sidelong glance with her clear blue eyes, she said:
“Jean, I wanted to ask you to consider something: if it would not perhaps be advisable to engage a man-servant. I have just been coming to that conclusion. When I think of my parents—”
The Consul let his paper drop on his knee and took his cigar out of his mouth. A shrewd look came into his eyes: here was a question of money to be paid out.
“My dear Betsy,” he said—and he spoke as deliberately as possible, to gain time to muster his excuses—“do you think we need a man-servant? Since my parents’ death we have kept on all three maids, not counting Mamsell Jungmann. It seems to me—”
“Oh, but the house is so big, Jean. We can hardly get along as it is. I say to Line, ‘Line, it’s a fearfully long time since the rooms in the annexe were dusted’; but I don’t like to drive the girls too hard; they have their work cut out to keep everything clean and tidy here in the front. And a man-servant would be so useful for errands and so on. We could find some honest man from the country, who wouldn’t expect much. . . . Oh, before I forget it—Louise Möllendorpf is letting her Anton go. I’ve seen him serve nicely at table.”
“To tell you the truth,” said the Consul, and shuffled about a little uneasily, “it is a new idea to me. We aren’t either entertaining or going out just now—”
“No, but we have visitors very often—for which I am not responsible, Jean, as you know, though of course I am always glad to see them. You have a business friend from somewhere, and you invite him to dinner. Then he has not taken a room at a hotel, so we ask him to stop the night. A missionary comes, and stops the week with us. Week after next, Pastor Mathias is coming from Kannstadt. And the wages amount to so little—”
“But they mount up, Betsy! We have four people here in the house—and think of the pay-roll the firm has!”
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