Page:The Tattooed Countess (1924).pdf/221

 of boy who learns anything easily. It will be a pleasure for me to teach you. But it doesn't matter now. I only wanted to suggest that we drink Brüderschaft.

I understand that.

Filling the glasses from the pitcher, she handed one to him. The other she lifted herself, and clinked it against his.

Friends and allies? she scarcely whispered.

He was silent, but assenting.

Repeat it after me, she insisted.

Friends and allies. His tone was fervent.

For ever.

For ever!

Now! Isn't the town more amusing already?

I want to die here now! he assured her.

Live here, you mean! We'll both live here.

It means something now.

Places are nothing, nothing, she said. It really doesn't matter where you are. It's the people who count.

Bearing the tray, she led the way back through the house. The clock in the library was striking the half-hour. It was very dark now on the porch. The moon had not yet risen. There was no light but that dim one which flickered through the vineleaves from the street-lamp on the corner. The young men visiting the twins had departed, the playing children returned home to bed, but the fiddling of locusts, the chirping of crickets persisted.