第35章

"I'm sure he must have seen us," said the younger girl."What does he mean by it?""Well, I have not come down here to play forfeits," said the other, "added to which I want my breakfast.You wait here a minute, I'll go and have it out with him."He was standing only a dozen yards away.Alone, though not a good performer on the ice, she contrived to cover half the distance dividing them.The officer, perceiving her, came to her assistance and greeted her with effusion.

[The Republican Idea in practice.]

"Oh," said the lady, who was feeling indignant, "I thought maybe you had left your glasses at home.""I am sorry," said the officer, "but it is impossible.""What's impossible?" demanded the lady.

"That I can be seen speaking to you," declared the officer, "while you are in company with that--that person.""What person?" She thought maybe he was alluding to the lady in the sledge.The chaperon was not showy, but, what is better, she was good.And, anyhow, it was the best the girls had been able to do.

So far as they were concerned, they had no use for a chaperon.The idea had been a thoughtful concession to European prejudice.

"The person in knickerbockers," explained the officer.

"Oh, THAT," exclaimed the lady, relieved: "he just came up and made himself agreeable while we were putting on our skates.We have met him somewhere, but I can't exactly fix him for the moment.""You have met him possibly at Wiesman's, in the Pragerstrasse: he is one of the attendants there," said the officer.

The American girl is Republican in her ideas, but she draws the line at hairdressers.In theory it is absurd: the hairdresser is a man and a brother: but we are none of us logical all the way.It made her mad, the thought that she had been seen by all Dresden Society skating with a hairdresser.

"Well," she said, "I do call that impudence.Why, they wouldn't do that even in Chicago."And she returned to where the hairdresser was illustrating to her friend the Dutch roll, determined to explain to him, as politely as possible, that although the free and enlightened Westerner has abolished social distinctions, he has not yet abolished them to that extent.

Had he been a commonplace German hairdresser he would have understood English, and all might have been easy.But to the "classy" German hairdresser, English is not so necessary, and the American ladies had reached, as regards their German, only the "improving" stage.In her excitement she confused the subjunctive and the imperative, and told him that he "might" go.He had no wish to go; he assured them--so they gathered--that his intention was to devote the morning to their service.He must have been a stupid man, but it is a type occasionally encountered.Two pretty women had greeted his advances with apparent delight.They were Americans, and the American girl was notoriously unconventional.He knew himself to be a good-looking young fellow.It did not occur to him that in expressing willingness to dispense with his attendance they could be in earnest.